HUMANITY AT SEA.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 466, 16 February 1869, Page 3

HUMANITY AT SEA.

Robert Watt, master, and James Kerr, mate, of the ship Arran, were brought before the High Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh, in December, to answer a charge of cruelty to "stow-aways." The ship sailed from Greenock in April last, bound for Quebec. Some little while after she sailed, seven lads, varying in age from 11 to 16 years, were discovered; some of them discovered themselves, for they were pretty nearly starved, and they not unnaturally hungered for a little food, however coarse. They were dragged before the captain, Robert Watt, and bis fine sense of mercy caused him to have the lads stripped stark naked and beaten upon the deck until they bled. This was done in the presence of icebergs, from which the freezing winds blew tortures upon the bodies of the naked, shivering stowaways. "And so you think we are going to take you to Quebec for nothing, do you ?" sneered the humane captain to the weeping boys. " I'll show you !" and he did show them, and in Buch a manner that death prevented three, and fear will prevent the others, from ever becoming stow-aways again. ; When the ship was imbedded in ice, twelve miles off Newfoundland, he , put them over the side of the ship ; upon the ice blocks, and bade them , »ood bye. Naturally the boys cried bitterly, and were not a bit more : sheerful when the captain, Robert j Watt, and the mate, James Kerr, j wished them ion voyage. The lads \ threaded their way round blocks of \ ce and great crevices, and fell, and pulled each other up again, and stum3eld into holes and were half dro.vned i dozen times. They shed bitter tears is they crawled along, poor stowaways, rad looked beseechingly at the ice )locks, the piercing cold from which nade its way to their marrows, and hen one of these boys, aged 11, slipped nto a hole, and though he threw up lis arms for help his comrades could lot save him. Then another of these >oys cried that he could go no further, rad fell down upon the ice, where he vas frozen to death. Four out of the even got to land to tell the story of heir sufferings. The captain and the nate were found guilty, and were entenced to —how very blind is justice ometimes !—one to eighteen months', md one to four months imprisonment. Ind so the poor frozen stowaways ire avenged by their murderers being mprisoned for a few months. Some oolish people say that the punishment _nflicted upon captain and mate is wickedly disproportionate to their offence.