A REPLY TO MR. SMALLEY.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2677, 15 September 1871, Page 2

A REPLY TO MR. SMALLEY.

To the Editor. Stß,— Your contemporary, the Daily Timet published a letter from Mr Smdiilt Smalley in its Tuesday’s issue complaining of a telegram published in your paper of the 9th, reflecting on the way in which the man who met his “death by falling from the mizeli topsail yard of the ship Shun tee, was interred on that date without Christian burial. He gives the old Latin rule, andi alterem par ent, or in plain Knghsh, hear the other side's which is much plainer. In tha lirsfc place, what does Mr Smalley mean, by the other side ? Your telegram says that “great indignation was felt at the manner in which tho body of the seaman who was killed on Thursday last by falling from the ship Shun Lea was interred to-day, no person following the dray which conveyed the remains to the grave, and no funeral service being performed.” Is there apy other side to facts like these, or does Mr Sinalley say, that because the deceased was a Frenchman, he must bo a Roman Catholic, and therefore the seaman’s missionary had nothing to do with him—soul or baly. dead or alive ? 1 always thought se .man’s missions 'were for all colours arid creeds. I know no questions are asked wheh the subiscriptibn list igoes round aboard a ship what drdei} you belong to. But, sir, it is no fexcusb

for Mr Smalley to say the missionary wa away on leave, for he well knew the man must be buried, and arrangements should have been made for another person to have done his duty in his absence. Rut the plain fact still remains The whole affair is a disgrace to civilization, and quite comes up to the old song, Rattle his bones over the stones, He’s only a pauper whom nobody owns.” For “ pauper ” read sailor,” and the simile is complete. As an eye-witness. I can state these are the fact s. The man was put in the coffin, clothes and all just as he fell. No shipmate was allowed to come on shore to follow his remains to the grave, and no prayer said over them. Yet a Christian minister complains of the indignation felt thereat, and says the innocent are blamed for the guilty.—Yours, &c,, An Old Sailor.