Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/526

 498

��Popular Science Monthly

���Only Hong Kong surpasses New York in the number and

activity of its harbor pirates. New York's police boats are

therefore armed with machine guns

��Taming Those Harbor Pirates

THE problem of the harbor pirate has perplexed the police of every great port of the world. Perhaps they have been more notorious in the cities of the Chinese coast than any other part of the world because of the wantonness and the dare-deviltry of their attacks. Even now in the port of Hong Kong which usually bristles with the warships of all nations, a dark, ghostly junk often slips quietly up out of the night. Throat-cutting and loot occur before the unsuspecting crew is hardly aware of the attack. Armored, shallow-draft gun-boats have done away to a large extent with these cut-throats in the south of China.

Next in prominence to the Chinese ports is the harbor of New York. It would be difficult indeed to estimate the number of cheap melodramas that have been based on New York harbor pira-

��teering. \\'ithin the last few years, however, the vocation of pirate in New York waters has lost the greatest part of its profitableness. River pirates when caught are dealt with so harshly that the pirates have been discouraged, and the recent addition to the New York police Ijoats of automatic rifles, or gattling guns has re- moved almost all of the remaining desire.

Mounted conveniently on the roof of the pilot houses of the New York police tugs are rapid-fir- ing rifles which can be swept entirely around the compass. These guns will literally squirt bul- lets of the regulation ar- my size at any desired target within a range of twenty-eight hundred yards, or considerably farther than a mile, with accuracy. They are not aimed, \\hen the search- light of the launch dis- covers a pirate craft, the gun is pointed in its gen- eral direction — and the trigger is pulled. The business of hitting the target is just as easy as squirting water from a hose on a man who is passing your front yard. The crews of the eleven New York po- lice boats were given daily practice all last summer in the Ambrose Channel off Staten Island.

Each launch carries five hundred rounds of ammunition. When pirates are pursued, one of the three men who comprise the crew, is stationed at the gun, another steers the boat and directs the searchlight, while the third takes care of the engine.

A\'hen the character of the enemy is believed to be more dangerous than usual, the patrol boat which is equipped with a Hotchkiss one-pounder, projecting a shell about two inches in diameter, is called into service. It will throw a pro- jectile accurately more than two miles.

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