CUSTOMS RAID AT KING’S WHARF, New Zealand Times, 2 March 1910, Page 1

CUSTOMS RAID AT KING’S WHARF^[1]

CABLE STEAMER VISITED

CIGARS, TOBACCO AND OPIUM SEIZED.

CHINESE SEAMEN FLUSTERED.

There was a commotion on the Eastern Extension Cable Company’s steamer Patrol at the King’s wharf yesterday afternoon. when Customs Searcher James Egar and Tide Waiter O. Jones paid a surprise visit to the vessel, and made a seizure of contraband goods hidden in the quarters of the Chinese members of the crew. About four or five hundred cigars, a considerable quantity of tobacco, and a few pounds of opium were seized. As opium is a prohibited drug the importation of it involves a heavy fine.

There are about seventy Chinese in the crew, comprising firemen, trimmers, greasers, stewards and cable hands. They raised quite a hub-bub when the Customs men began to search their quarters. The uproar attracted a number of onlookers at the wharf.

Here and there were excited groups of celestials, all talking simultaneously, while occasionally a morose looking Mongol bubbling with indignation, would get a word in edgeways. It was like a suffragette meeting. Everyone wanted to have a say.

For two hours the officers stuck to the quest for contraband. It was not unlike the old-fashioned game of “hunt-the-slipper.” Whenever the searchers got “warm’: the Chinese raised their voices in heated discussion, and the unearthing of each parcel of contraband evoked a chorus of exclamations. The task was not a pleasant one for the Customs officers, but they did not cease till every nook and cranny had been explored. The unwelcome guests, however, seemed well satisfied with their haul.

The Patrol came to Wellington last week to replenish her coal supplies, having come down from the East to do cable repair work in Australasian waters. She is to leave Wellington within a few days.