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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 67, 19 March 1879, Page 4

In the case of Police v. Evans, in which the master of the barque Easterhill was charged with neglecting to save the life of the apprentice who fell overboard, Mr I. N. Watt, R.M., delivered the following judgment : — "The offence is charged under the 11 7th sectiou of ihe New Zaaland and 239tb section of the Imperial Merchant Shipping Acte, which are. in fact identical. Whether the accused is or is not guilty of the offence charged in the information appears to me fo depend on whether the boy was alive or dead when he fell into the water; if alive, then the master, by hie omission to take every meana to save bis life, is guilty of the offence charged, but not by law required to take any measures to recover a dead body, however desirable it might have been. The master had no right to consider whether the boy bad reached the water alive and would have drowned before a boat would have reached him; but if the boy did so reach the water it was his duty to make every <ffbrt practicable to preserve the life as loug as life existed. This he failed to do, and absolutely did nothing, exhibiting a want of presence of mind, incopaeity, or callousuess which I hope and think is unparalleled among British shipmasters. The facts necessary to be noticed ore as follows : — The boy fell, with no appreciable obstruction, from the main royal yard to the boat skid, with the side of his ribs fairly across the end of it; thence either he or his body rebounded into the sea; whether or no, it floated on the tide without showing any signs of life to those on deck, or to the witness Johnston who jumped overboard. No expert witness having been called, I am of opinion, speaking as a jury, that the fall described must have literally crushed in the boy's ribs and caused immediate death, and I am fortified in this opinion by the circumstance that it appears also to have been the opinion of all who saw the accident, for they all talk of tta boy falling, but immediately upon and ufter its reaching the water they all talk of it as the body. Such being my opinion, I do not see my way to convict the accused of omitting to take meane to preserve life I must therefore dismiss the information. In doing so I cannot too strongly reprobate the unmanly conduct of the k accused, and cannot help contrasting it

with that of lbs witness who boldly and gallantly rushed overboard after tbe poor boy, trusting to that assistance to save him which was given bo tardily Bnd inefficiently that he wbs uuable to e ffect his objpct, and barely able to save himpelf. Marvellous to relate, too. ibpre were two life buoys hanging astern, and neither was thrown to the boy nor to Johnson. The information is dismissed, and accused discharged."' The special correspondent of the Pioneer with the Kfiyber Puss column thus describes the attack on me of th'e enemy's outposts at Ali Mnsjid, in which Mttjor Birch and Lieutenant Fitzgerald were killed: — It tbe nrmy had mada n determined Btnnd it would probably have taken hr.lf a dozen regiment?, with Europeans in the rear, to fffect a rapture of this important position Whn ordered tbe 14th Sikba and tlie 27ih N.I. to penetrate up tbe bill, riirhf on to the natural glacis of so strongly fortified a post, no one, as I said before, appears to know. The men were entirely unsupported, and being 88 well scattered -over a largß extent of most difficult ground, they became somewhat disorganigarf. It was then that 8n officer of the 14 h Sikhs, who wcs in advance of the rest and in very close proximity to the enemy was elightly wounded, aad looking back to Major Birch, who was in advance of a small party of bis sepoys, ] cried, "It you do not help me, I'm done for ?" Mojor Birch, with that characteristic valour which dis- ! tinguished him in tbe Mutiny, immediately drew bis sword, and, calling to his men, rushed impetuously forward, but his progress was arrested by a wound in the lower part of the body — I believe in Lis thigh — and a second bullet struck with tremendous violence on a locket worn on his left breast, and drove it into his heart, and he instantly fell. He had no sooner fallen than LieuU nant Fitzgerald, of the same regiment, who was also on the spot, and to whom fear was a feeling unknown, ira-

mediately sallied out with his orderly to recover the body of his commanding officer. He bud hardly advanced, when he was wounded in the arm, hut with the exclamation « : Oh, that's nothing !" he proceeded to convey Mojor Birch to the slight shelter of a rock or of a low thorny bosh, I know not which. At | that moment, according to the testimony of the native officers who saw tho occurrence, he was wounded a second time in the side and fell dear! — ns brave a soldier hs ever struck with sword. It is rema-k<ib!e, bat it has been slated as a fact, that both the halt nnd the retire had been eouuded some lime before thepe ev nta occurred, but hII

accounts from those immediately concerned under (be works of the enemy agree that neither one nor the other was heard by either Birch or Fitzgerald, or hy'any one with them. One enthusiastic Campbell in Quebee slaughtered a couple of oxen, and distrlI buted tbem in quarters to the different charitable institutions, as athank offering for the safe arrival of the Marquis of Lome. Uncontrovertible, incontestible, indisputable, ungainsayable, incomparatable, superlatively supreme, stand the unparalleled remedies, " Gnor.r.AH's Great Indian Cukfs." No such extraordinary cures hrve ever been effected as by these marvellous i Indian Medicinks Ask at the Chemists' for copies o* tb.6 numerous testimonials given by respectable old Colonists.