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. 



