Hi Don, I enjoyed this story very much - so interesting! And I loved the happy ending! Regards Diana It should come as no surprise to any of us that thefts occur on liners. Here are 3 examples Liners were frequently used to move gold and silver from country to country. In December, 1897, the Ward Line's City of Washington transported 600,000 Mexican silver dollars from Vera Cruz to New York; more accurately, she transported 597,125 Mexican silver dollars, for during the voyage, 2,875 went missing, much to the anguish of Captain Burley and Purser Folger. In Mexico, the silver dollars had been packed, 3,000 to a box, in wooden boxes about a foot square and six inches deep. The boxes each had a lockable lid and were secured by iron bands. The City of Washington had a special tank, fifteen feet square abaft the after bulkhead that had iron walls. Located between the saloon and main decks, access was only through a manhole, that itself was secured by iron bars and then double locked with two person integrity, Burley having one key, and Folger the other. The tank was reserved for bulky cargoes like the silver; gold was kept in the ship's safe. After disembarking her passengers, the boxes of dollars were unloaded, and the tally counted. One box was missing. They searched the ship with a fine toothed comb, and found a canvas sack in the forward saloon containing 125 of the missing dollars. The search intensified, including a minute examination of the locks on the manhole, which were found to be in order. Central Office detectives determined that the box had been hidden while the ship was being loaded in Vera Cruz, and that the perps (?) sailed with the City of Washington, although it was unclear whether they disembarked in Progreso, Havana, or New York. Another question was whether the perps had been caught in the act, or almost caught which caused them to drop the sack containing part of their loot. A notorious rascal with a close to year-long reign in the forefront of jewel thieves was 25-year old Jules Rubin. Rubin began victimizing an assortment of Atlantic and pacific liners in December, 1933. In February 1934, he worked the Malolo between the US West Coast and Hawaii. During that spree, he made off with a brooch variously described as being worth $3,600 and $5,000, and a diamond ring, both from the cabin of actress Polly Moran, as well as another diamond ring worth $2,000. Afraid to take the ring off the ship after being questioned by San Francisco detectives, Rubin hid it in a light socket. A month later, Rubin returned to the scene of the crime and recovered the ring. Rubin had a good haul at Easter aboard the Kungsholm. During that trip, Rubin made off with $22,000 worth of jewellery. Amazingly, $8,000 of it belonged to one man, William K. Jacobs of New York. For good measure, a March trip aboard the Georgic yielded him a $2,900 fur coat. His activities were not going unnoticed. Detectives Erbach and Juber were on his trail. For three months, they put together their case against him. On August 15, 1934, in Grand Central Terminal, they arrested their man. Between December 1933 when he "began his depredations," and August 1934, when he was finally hauled off to durance vile, Rubin had cleared ocean liner cabins of furs and jewellery valued at $400,000, and insured for $250,000. Described by the detectives as having "a superficial culture," Rubin claimed to have two years of college. Dishonourably discharged at some earlier point from the Navy for unstated reasons, Rubin had no prior record. He had long been under suspicion. Detectives in both Honolulu and San Francisco had questioned him to no avail. Interrogated at length by Erbach and Juber, the dapper Rubin sang like a canary as he confessed to his crimes in a six page written confession. His confession allowed police to recover a $2,000 diamond ring, and they were hopeful of recovering an additional $15,000 of the loot. In fact, they recovered almost $50,000 worth of loot, including Polly Moran's brooch, which was returned to her, and an additional $43,000 worth which was unclaimed at the time of Rubin's conviction in a Federal Court in October, 1934 for larceny on the high seas. Rubin faced six years at government expense. Creativity is not just found on the part of the wrong-doer; sometimes the judge and jury exercise creativity as well. In July, 1904, Hamburg-Amerika's Graf Waldersee faced a food thief! Steerage passengers complained almost daily that food and sweetmeats were going missing from their carefully hidden resting places. One day, a passenger returned to find the thief in the act. Face and hands covered with jam, the pretty little golden haired girl was roughly grabbed by the jam's owner and turned over to the steward. In that condition, with no time to clean up, she was hauled before the Master, Captain Krech. Her guilt dripping from her mouth and hands, she was sternly interrogated. Learning the degree of poverty of the girl's parents, Krech mulled her punishment. "This is a very serious case and must be dealt with accordingly. The penalty for the first offense is imprisonment. For the second it is spanking, and for the third, it is hanging or exclusion from America. But the facts in this case are such that I shall have to be more severe. I therefore sentence you to eat the best jam this ship can produce every time you feel like it. The jam will be supplied by the steward." It was unlikely the girl understood all that, but she did understand the pot of jam that was brought to her on request. She smiled at the Captain and kept her face in the jam pot for the rest of the journey. Her fate on arriving in America is unrecorded. (My thanks to John Emery - Cedar Hill, Texas) Regards Don