A NAVAL SCANDAL.—HORRIBLE CASE OF CRUELTY TO A MIDSHIPMAN OF H.M.S.C. PHŒBE.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 1, Issue 33, 12 August 1867, Page 200

A NAVAL SCANDAL.—HORRIBLE CASE OF CRUELTY TO A MIDSHIPMAN OF H.M.S.C. PHŒBE.

[daily TELEGRAPH, JUNE 3.] A story has come to our ears which is so disgraceful to the chief actor or actors in the affair that we give it' for the. present in outline only, trusting that the report may 1 be susceptible of some modification by those who are concerned. The Phoebe a steam corvette of twenty-one guns, has been lately fitting out at Plymouth for the West Indies and the American station. Among those of her officers who have already joined is a young gentleman fourteen years of age, the junior midshipman. This poor boy had not been on board the corvette three days before he was subjected to a most brutal and dastardly outrage. Some of his fellow officers lashed him down to a table or to the carriage of a gun, so that he could not stir a muscle, and then with a sharp instrument, they cut upon his nose the figure of the “ broad arrow,” and, rubbing gunpowder into the wound, they “tattoed” it indelibly. Not only has infamous torture been inflicted, but the lad must wear a disfiguring brand all his life long—a thick black line down the ridge of his nose and over each nostril, Nothing could obliterate the mark except a cruel and continuous operation, attended by the utmost pain; and the efficacy even of that remedy is at the best doubtful. These abominable bullies, being sailors, knew the process well, and they have probably ’stamped the badge too deep for it to be erased. The ill-used youth complained to the captain of the Phoebe, and that gentleman on making inquiries, and discovering the ringleader, at once ordered the fellow to regard himself as dismissed from her Majesty’s service with disgrace. There cannot be the slightest wavering as to the sentence which should be received by the commissioned miscreant who inflicted this indignity and pain upon his boy-comrade. The uniform of her Majesty is tarnished every day that it is worn by an officer who, while old enough to be responsible for his con duct, could plan and carry out such a piece of cold and mischievous barbarity. There cannot and there must not, be a moment’s hesitation about the confirmation of the most necessary judgment passed in the first place by the .captain of the Phoebe, Nor will justice be done with the ringleader, when her Majesty’s service is quit of the offender. He ought to be punished in a criminal court for the cruelty which he has perpetrated. We know, of course, that the jokes of the midshipmen’s mess will sometimes take a practical turn, and that tatooing is a kind of penal ornamentation for which sailors have an extraordinary love. But no such excuse can be urged here. The thing is utterly outside the pale of any youthful frolic; the lad, besides being subjected to torture and anguish, has been made an object of ridicule for life ; and the miserable outrage has been perpetrated in cold blood by his own shipmates, before he has been three days on board. Let any parent put himself in the position of the victim’s parents, and judge how they must regard her Majesty’s service if stern 1 justice be not done upon the authors ' of this most abominable and cowardly torment, As for the boy who has suffered such cruelty, we hope to see him wear the badge under the Queen’s . pennant till his friends are proud to know him by it. He is stamped with 1 the “ broad arrow ” for life; but if he sticks to the sea, and does his duty, he deserves the promise of a special distinction—he should be called the “ Queen’s Midshipman,” and Her Majesty herself, we think, would never : overlook a young officer so cruelly marked with the brand of her service.