Our informants are emphatic in their statements that the cadets are utterly opposed to any sembly ance of discipline and equally indisposed to perform the work which, on a British ship carrying. cadets, cadets are put. The cadets almost invariably wore spats on. board. We are told of one engineer-cadet who possesses a beautiful pair of hands and who, before he touches. greasy spanne:: or anything of a kindred nature, sees to it that his hands are gloved or otherwise protected from the contamination associated manual labour in the engine room of a ship. Another uses cotton waste.
Matters appear to have reached a climax when the Hwah Jo) arrived at Tsingtao towards the end of April. The chief officer sent in his resignation, on the grounds that he had been instruct ed, by u representative of the Syndicate, not to use any paint whatsoever on the ship; that the second officer had been placed in charge of the ship's stores; that at Yokohama, three of the foreign members of the crew had received anonymous threatening letters, in tone at least of which a sudden and early demise of the recipient was hinted at; and that discipline among the cadets was so lax that they were simply doing as they pleased. We are in possession of a copy of the letter.
On April 30 a representative of the Syndicate came on board ahd dismissed of the foreign staft—captain, chief officer, and chief and second engineers. There seems to have been a little difficulty regarding payment of the month's pay in Hew of notice to which all were titled under the agreement (we have seen a copy), but the ship's register was withheld till the money had been paid.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.