- He wears an earring on his left ear according to a tradition of the British merchant navy dating back to the 18th century. In the navy, on the other hand, an earring was worn on the right ear.
- Wearing an earring on the left ear is also an anarchistic symbol.
- A scar across his left palm due to a self-made wound using a razor to draw the missing Fate line he complained about!

- In 1910 Corto Maltese is the staff captain of the Bostonian, a ship for the transport of cattle from and to Liverpool and Boston.
He clears the future US journalist John Reed (born in 1887), who had signed on as a cabin boy, from the charge of murder. Thus held up to ridicule, the captain of the Bostonian dismisses the staff captain and adds his name to the black list of the captains of the British merchant navy. Due to this incident, Corto Maltese, now unemployed, goes underground.
- Spotted in China from 1900 on during the Boxer uprising and siege of the foreign embassies in Peking. Spotted again in 1905 and 1913.
- He is suspected of smuggling and acts of piracy in the Pacific islands from 1913 to 1915, particularly on behalf of the gang leader called the Monk. He is also alleged to have supplied some German battlecruisers that were privateering. (See cards on THOMAS GROOVESNORE and RASPUTIN.)
- In 1918 he stands trial for murder in South Africa. Corto Maltese is alleged to have killed a German sergeant and an unscrupulous trader in Mikindani, on the eastern coast of Africa, in complicity with some anti-colonialists. – He is acquitted on 28th October.
- He is an arrogant and subversive “freethinker”. (Personal comment.)

TO BE WATCHED. HE IS A DANGER FOR THE SAFETY OF THE HONG KONG COLONY AS HE IS SUSPECTED, ABOVE ALL, OF BEING LINKED TO THE CHINESE SECRET SOCIETY CALLED THE TRIAD OR THE HEAVEN AND EARTH SOCIETY.