A HARSH SENTENCE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2704, 7 December 1882, Page 3

A HARSH SENTENCE.

To the Editor of the Globe.

Sir, —While the subject of peculiar sentences in the lower Courts is fresh in the mind, a sentence passed upon an unfortunate fireman of one of the Union Company’s steamers the other day atLyttelton is in point. The case of that man was that he had stopped ashore from the steamer without the consent of his master, and for so doing he was ordered a month’s imprisonment. Now, if the story that fireman toldwas true (and no evidence broughtcontradicted it) a month’s confinement certainly was severe, and with all respect for the two justices’who gave it, altogether harsh. He said that he was not paid off at Port Chalmers with the rest of the firemen, and for some reason, known only to the engineer of the vessel, his pay was kept from him until the vessel came to Lyttelton. It is usual, it seems, to make Port Chalmers or Dunedin the port of discharge in the Union Company’s service; but, as just stated, for some reason, the •uginecr thought proper to withhold this man’s money until the vessel came on to Lyttelton, and, if the man was speaking the truth, another fireman was shipped in Dunedin in this man’s place. The Bench had this statement before them, and against it there was really nothing to show to the contrary. No attempt was made by the man to deny that he left the vessel, or that he left without permission, he justifying his conduct by the exceptional manner in which the engineer had, as he alleged, treated him. Now there may be another side to this, but before depriving him of his liberty, and before subjecting him to the degradation of a month’s gaol, it would have been but reasonable that such other side should be forthcoming.

Yours, &c., LYTTELTONIAN. December 7th, 1882.