MURDER ON THE HIGH SEAS. DISCIPLINE ON A YANKEE BARQUE. (FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.) London, January 16th.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 95, 28 March 1885, Page 6

MURDER ON THE HIGH SEAS. DISCIPLINE ON A YANKEE BARQUE. (FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT. ) London, January 16th.

An inquiry is at present being made into the circumstances attending* very horrible murder which, if the prosecution are right, took place on board an American vessel called the I. F. Chapman, a few months ago whilst on a voyage from San Francisco to Liverpool. American merchant vessels have always had an unenviable reputation for cruel bullying on the part of captaine and mates, and the following story certainly goes a long way towards justifying it. The Jrosecution aver that a Russian Finn named ansen shipped as able seaman on board thi I. F. Chapman at San Francisco. He was in extremely bad health, as others often are who sign articles because they have no money left to enable them to obtain lodging and food ashore. It is also states that he was inefficient as a seaman, which really ought not to surprise anybody in the age when good English sailors are being thrust aside that the cheap foreigner may find room in forecastles in which British salts only should swing their hammocks. If the testimony of members of the crew is to be believed, this unhappy Finn was made to suffer cruelly and atrociously at the hands of the second mate and the boatswain. Hi« inefficiency was, no doubt, severely felt by the second mate, in whose watch the ooor fellow was, because it appears that that watch had been weakened by two men falling overboard from aloft j and most people know th&t ships nowadays do not go to sea so manned as to render the loss or disablement of two hands a matter of small consequence. Apparently the boatswain and the second mate wanted to get the work of the two lost men out of the sick Finn, Be this as it may, it is alleged that because they did not find Jansen very active and nimble in consequence of a diseased leg and illness in other respects, they kicked and beat him ; they put him to ply the handle of a pump which needed the labour of two men ; they forced him on to his knees, and compelled him to empty a bucket of water by dipping a small piece of rag into it and squeezing it into another bucket ; and, to limit a list of sickening particulars, they finally lashed him to the roresheets in the manner thus explained by Arthur Evans, an able seaman. " They lashed him around the body, but first put bags around the topsail sheets so that the chains should not hurt him. He was lashed with his arms to his side, and he was hanging with his head drooping and his toes just touching the deck. As the sheets worked he would be lifted up and down." " The affair," the captain said in his evidence, " happened in thirty-nine degrees south latitude, when there was a strong breeze from the south, and the temperature was fifty degrees." As might have been expected, the man died. He is declared to have been half dead when he was " seized " to the topsail sheets ; for George Brown, a seaman, breaking off in his evidence abruptly, said, " Did you ever see a man trying to walk about half dead ? That's how he was." When dead he was cut down, and the boatswain rubbed him ; but such tenderness on the part of the man who, it is alleged, lashed the Finn to the chains, came, if all this be true, too late ; the unhappy sailor was a corpse ; and the captain said his body was consigned to the deep, the burial service being read over him as the plank was tilted. So far all this amounts merely to so many allegations, and we heartily hope that the prisoners will be able to disprove the testimony given against them. Yet one feature may legitimately be commented upon : the readinee3 with which a portion of the crew came forward to relate the horrors which at the period they coolly tolerated and ! watched. Is the manhood of the sailor gone, that he can sneak into his forecastle or go on quietly with his work on deck or aloft when, according to his evidence, a sick shipmate is at the time being brutally bullied or standing lashed and dying against the " served " topsail sheets, mercifully furnished with chafing gear that the iron of the links might not pierce the wretch's flesh, if it entered his soul ? We know that discipline on board ship becomes a great and often an insurmountable influence by sheer force of the powers wielded by a captain and by the traditionary moral awe which the quarter-deck inspires ; we know that often the forecastle is as a house divided against itself ; that one or more who would ant dare not do so because they are aware that there are coward-spirits who would makecombination against brutal ar d murderous officers impossible. We also thoroughly understand the apathetic character of the sailor who, partly thinking of his wages, of the worry and difficulties of a demonstration that may end in mutiny, and partly influenced by his characteristic resolution to do his " bit " and not trouble about matters which do not concern him, will suffer tyranny and brutality to run their course, satisfied that the voyage cannot last for ever, and with his mind made up to leave the ship for good when port is entered and he has "taken up" his money. But is there no limit to the sailor's indifference to a shipmate's sufferings ? We should be very sorry to say a word calculated to be interpreted into an idea that mutinous proceedings are in any case justifiable. If, however, there bo any truth in this story of the I. F. Chapman, surely not the " tautest hand" that ever walked a quarter-deck, whether i f the Navy or the Merchant Service, would condemn the crew of this American vessel had they refused to aid the second mate and boatswain in the dreadful punishments inflicted upon the Finn, or, better still, had they boldly gone affc, all of them, and given the captain and mates plainly to understand that, unless the Finn were kindly treated and suffered to lie by as a sick and helpless man, they would refuse to work the ship. Some such determined attitude would, we are sure, have been recognised on all sides for their duty as humane and honest men ; and we think it is impossible to conceive of any ulterior judgment pronounced upon them that would not be one of approval.

Ti'em is money for the ministers. Napier Education Board have resolved not to resignjand throw back in the face of Government the extra £1,000 offered. The appointment of shorthand reporters in Court is advocated by Dunedin Chamber of Commerce. Mr Rees emulates Honry George as a political economist. Kaiser's birthday held here ; sauerkraut and lager bier. Fever patients have been released from quarantine at Wellington. A boy named John Teliwell has fallen over the Shakepere Cliff at Wanganui, and got his leg broken, Dunedin Volunteers had a grand reception on their return from the prize-firing on Saturday, T. K. H. Taylor, boatbuilder, Wellington, is charged with perjury. Mr Blythe, Agent-General for South Australia, favours a schemo of completo self-government for the Australian colonies. The steamship Wairarapa has been berthed at Dunedra Wharf . j