ALLEGED ILLTREATMENT.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXI, Issue 15456, 7 November 1910, Page 2

ALLEGED ILLTREATMENT.

A SAILOR'S STORY DISCREDITED,

[Per Press AssociahoxJ WELLINGTON, November 6. The extraordinary tales of cruelties which were alleged to have taken place on the German barque Martha Boekhfthn while in New Zealand waters were referred to by the Chief Justice (Sir Robert Stout) yesterday at the Supreme Court. On Saturday, October 22. Olaf Aanensen, a young Norwegian sailor. !"was charged with escaping from custody at "West-port while detained on a charge of desertion from his ship. Speaking in broken English, the prisoner said he had been beaten on the ship till he was black and blue, and that he had been hung up "by the heels and subjected to other cruelties bscause lie was not a German. He did not want to go back to the vessel, as he. expected a repetition of the treatment. The prisoner preferred gaol to returning to the ship, and he was accordingly sentenced to five weeks' imprisonment, which would carry him over the time the ship would be in port. His Honor suggested that the matter should be referred to the. German Consul. _ When the Court opened yesterday, his Honor said: "As to the'ill-treatment alleged to have taken place on board the Martha Bockhahn, I have received a statement through the German Consul from the master of the barque repudiating the statements"that? 111-treatment had taken place. The police report gives notes of evidence taken from the captain, his officers and some of the crew, and, perhaps most important of all, from Charles M'Lean, who saw what occurred. This-man was not a German, and only joined the barque at Westport. They all say that the tatter's statements are correct, and I have no right to assume that they are. incorrect. They say that tl)e man's statements are untrue. Aanensen, they said, had not been treated as he had alleged, and, further, he was apparently under the influence of liquor. TVe know from experience that people who get intoxicated are sometimes in the habit of imagining things that did not occur. At any rate, lam very glad that these statements should have been made, because I thought at the time, from what I know of the Germans, they are not generally cruel, although, of course, individuals of any race may be.' I feel sure that, had anything oean done wrong, the German authorities would have been oniy too glad to remedy it. From the mass .of evidence collected by the police, this man's statement cannot be relied upon"