Many people in Devon spent last night recovering goods washed ashore after a ship ran aground near Sidmouth, following heavy storms.
Some of the goods ’salvaged’ from the ship included wine, whisky, and even a BMW motorbike. I wonder how many such items will be retained by the ’salvagers’. I would be surprised if up to half of the items taken are eventually handed in to the Receiver of Wreck.
What is the difference between ’salvaging’ and ‘looting’? When it’s done in Baghdad, it’s looting. When it happens in Devon, it’s salvaging.
Still, good to know that such opportunistic behaviour is not necessarily confined to Africa and the poorer countries.
January 22nd, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Bel, you are right. Were this to happen somewhere in the developing world, the (often correct) assumption would be that the goods were being looted. This happens in Devon, and we are meant to believe that most of the people carrying loads of whiskey bottles away will return to hand them in to some jobsworth official? Who are they kidding? I will believe that when I see it.
January 22nd, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Is this type of thing still going on? I just re-read an Agatha Christie [Tuesday Club Murders], where this was happening.
January 22nd, 2007 at 1:22 pm
James,
oh yes, this sort of thing is still going on. Allow me to quote from Ecclesiastes 1:9:
‘What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.’
Very true.
January 22nd, 2007 at 2:44 pm
It could be called scavaging too.
January 22nd, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Oh the shame……….Bel why is it that you are always pointing out some sort of behaviour that I have recently engaged in and thought perfectly ok until you shined the light on it
I love foraging and scavenging but somehow when I do it in Devon with Fair Folk it feels less nefarious. Or rather it did before now…….*Morag shuffles away mumbling about not hanging out with that Bel anymore……
January 22nd, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Somehow, Morag, I can’t picture you down by the beach in the dead of night with a few bottles of whisky down your top.
Still, stranger things have happened.
January 23rd, 2007 at 2:52 pm
Bel,I’ve followed up on this today too, focusing on the police standing by while these looters get stuck in and walk away with all these goods.
I gave you a plug on 18 Doughty Street last night as a top woman political blogger, btw.
January 23rd, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Hi Ellee, thank you.
I’ll go watch. I hope you had fun on the programme.
January 23rd, 2007 at 3:12 pm
The police are now claiming that they had no power to stop people going on to the beach. What rubbish. Surely they could have come up with something to prevent that, if they wanted.
They are now facing criticism for allowing the wholesale looting and plunder of that ship, and are looking for any excuse they can hold on to.
Disgraceful.
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Are you all against recycling? Really, some people!
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:17 pm
I think I am right in saying that this is actually sanctioned in law- Flotsam and Jetsam originally meant materials either floating or otherwise jettisoned by a ship and which were the legitimate property of whoever found it. It is certainly a bit of a dodgy issue in law, but cetainly it would be hard to prove the ’salvagers’ had committed any crime. Shipwrecked property is somewhat different to buildings.
It is perhaps worth mentioning the tale of Poor Sir Cloudesley Shovell, a british admiral who lost his ship- and his life- not to the French or the Spanish but the Wreckers of the Scilly Isles.
It’s kind of a West Country custom.
January 24th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Joe, it is not sanctioned in law. There is no finder’s keepers in this respect, at least, not at the outset.
As I understand it, what the law says is that any goods salvaged should be reported to the Receiver of Wreck. Attempts will then be made to trace the owner. If after a certain period, the owner cannot be found, or does not want the goods, then the salvager can keep it.
It seems to me that that procedure may not have been followed in ALL the cases of ’salvaging’ that went on at the beach.
January 24th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
I possibly overstate the case. What I actually meant is the law is still ambiguous in this field.
Fairly typical human behaviour, I’m afraid. It’s part pilfering, part trophy hunting. The sheer novelty of the thing from the point of view of the locals makes this kind of thing inevitable. There are two extreme ends to the scale, on the one hand we have the looting in Baghdad, at the other the scramble for pieces of the Berlin wall as it came down. This incident stands about half way to me. Of dubious morality perhaps, but not inconsistent with real human behaviour.
January 24th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Still theft, though, if the intention is to deprive the owner permanently of the goods.
January 24th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
i don’t dispute that- but there’s degrees- there are grades of grey stretching between black and white. To move further into grey,did you never ride home as a student in a shopping trolley wearing a traffic cone on your head? (If you didn’t, don’t worry, It’s probably not to be recommened!!)
You look back back on such things partly laughing, partly cringing, and partly knowing that it was kind of theft- maybe even looting!
Of course this sort of thing is much more serious. But it’s not up there with the decimation of the priceless artifects of Sumer and Bablylonia in Baghdad.
Proudhon would have understood.
January 24th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Since when do we judge crime in relative terms?
To extend your argument, one might say to a serial killer who has killed five prostitutes: ‘it’s not really that bad, compared to what Idi Amin did to his people, or what Pol Pot did to his.
Following on from that logic, there is no crime, as the serial killing of five prostitutes is right at the lower end of the mass murder scale.
January 24th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
We always judge crime in relative terms. It’s why the death penalty is no longer the penalty for every crime ranging from theft of twelve shillings upwards.
The examples you quote are always evil, no matter how you slice the cake, what happened in Baghdad is an irreparable loss to mankind, what happened in Devon is a sad reflection on human chatacter.
I’m not saying it’s something we should condone as a society, merely that this something ordinary people can do- as we have seen- rather than something that strikes a chord of horror within.
Whisky Galore is one of those films which is still amuses..
January 24th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Joe, you say that we always judge crime in relative terms. An interesting statement, and definitely worth some more thought. I will think on this a bit more. It is certainly a very interesting philosophical question.
A few thoughts, though. Take the crime of rape. Is rape not always rape, irrespective of the parties involved? How does relativity enter into this particular crime? Some argue that the crime is *worse* if committed by a lurking stranger against a defenceless girl on her own at night, than it would be in a so-called ‘date rape’ scenario. And true, the sentencing may well reflect this. Aggravating factors may be taken into account in the case of the former, for example. But does that make the date rape offence any the less worse, in the eyes of the victim? Has she not been raped? Does it mean anything to her that her circumstances are adjudged to be ‘not as bad as’ those of the other victim?
Back to the ’salvagers’, is there not an argument that the ‘circumstances’ do not, should not, matter? It’s not as if they acted out of necessity, is it? Theft remains theft. True, there is a question of ‘degree’, but that should go to the issue of sentencing. It should have no bearing on the nature of the offence.
January 24th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Interesting point, Bel. But I would argue that in rape it is always the same thing that is stolen from the victim and of necessity always involves the exploitation of a weaker party by a stronger in whatever circumstances. This kind of makes it difficult for there to be so many grey areas, which is why we generally say rape is rape, no matter what. It is fair because the trauma caused is always going to be great and often scars for life.
In this sort of case, we have a number of variables we don’t have in the case of rape. For example there is the the value- in terms of damage to society as well as financial value- of the items ‘looted’. Then there is the degree to which any element of deliberate malice was needed on the part of the perpetrators. Swiping a few crates of whisky from a wreck in your area- half of which lie underwater and will never be recovereed by anyone- is hardly the crime of the century. The owners of the ship will claim whatever they lost on the insurance anyway.
I’m about to crack upon this bottle of Jameson’s someone brought back from Devon- fancy a glass?
January 24th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Oh, yes please, Joe. Thank you.
Always fun debating with you.
January 27th, 2007 at 8:15 am
I’d suggest more may end up on ebay than with the reciever of wrecks
January 27th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
I read a few days ago that ebay had started taking them down. They would have been in a tricky position otherwise, as they would have been facilitating the sale of stolen goods.