SHIP DESERTION.

Evening Star, Issue 3774, 30 March 1875, Page 2

SHIP DESERTION.

To the Editor.

j. v c //to ii/u-<cur. —I have at different times seen notices of the apprehension of run-away sailors, and the penalty attached to the offence of desertion has generally been two months' imprisonment, with the captain having the option of taking them on board, provided the ship should sail before their sentence is up. Isow, don’t you think this is rather hard upon the poor sailor ? If he is sent to prison I think he should have the option of returning on board left to himself. Who discovered the country? Who worked the ships which brought nine-tenths of the people to this Colony ? Why the answer is simply sailor-. Yet how many of our colonists forget what they owe to sailors ? Almost everyone. But how few of our people have not seen or heard something of the treatment sailors receive while on board ship ; such as bad food, scarcity of water (unless salt water, of which they receive too much), and hard times, being at work night and day ? Few, very few. The remedy I would suggest is a different code of laws as regards food, etc., better wages and a little more leniency towards their faults. Until this is done I won’t wonder if every ship that comes into our port should lose its crew, and I wish them all luck when they start “on the wallaby.” » By inserting the above in your paper you will greatly oblige.—l am, &c,, _ . Justice. Dunedin, March 29.

The wifej of the Mayor of Melbourne gives “ receptions ” at the Town Rail. Puerperal fever has been alarmingly prevalent in the Melbourne Lying-in Hospital.