HORRIBLE CRUELTY TO A SHIP'S APPRENTICE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 1350, 17 January 1879, Page 2

HORRIBLE CRUELTY TO A SHIP'S APPRENTICE.

On October 31st, at the Devon Assizes, held at Exeter, before Lord Coleridge, the three days' trial of Richard Proudfoot, Wm. Henry Strickland, and Robert Murray, the captain, mate, and boatswain of the Maggie Dnon, who were charged with wounding with intent to murder Charles Astley Cooper, was brought to a conclusion. Tho prisoners were tried at the Bodmin summer assizes for manslaughter, but the Jury then acquitted them, and Mr. Justico Denman ordered the prisoners to bo put on their trial on the present charge at tho assizes. Cooper was formerly a chemist's assistant; but m May last year he shipped on board tho defendants' vessel as an apprentice, and started on a voyage from North Shields to Sumatra. The apprentice was quite ignorant of his duties, and soon after tho voyage commenced, the miite, m whose watch he was placed, frequently ropes-ended and struck him, generally on the back of the neck, causing blood to come from the youth's noso and ears. The steward called the attention of tho captain to this ill-treatment, and the boy was shifted to another mate's watch. The illtreatment was there continued, and on further complaint being made, and on the boy being stripped, ho was found to bo black and blue, and covered with sores, from which the blood was oozing. The boy was at last attacked vrith scurvy, which incapacitated him from work; and then the captain ill-treated him m a very brutal manner. The only food given him was boiled rice and barley, and when others of the crew gave the lad different food the captain threatened that ho would starve them and treat them as he did the boy. Tho lad got worse, but when ho was quite unfit for work ho was sent into the fore peak to shovel coals, and kept at this work for many hours. When oxhausted he came on deck and asked for food and water, upon wliieh the captain rattaned him ; and tho mate had similarly Berved him on other occasions. The boy cried for mercy, but was then thrashed more unmercifully. On several occasions tho boy, when suffering from scurvy, was strippod of his clothes, made to lie down m the lee scuppers, and water thrown over him, and he was scrubbed with a broom. At this time there were many unhealed sores about him, and therefore the pain was exquisite. On another occasion tho boy's head waß greased and tarred. When suffering from tho scurvy, he was 40 or 50 times sent up and down the mast, and each time ho reached the masthead ho was ordered to cry out " Cuckoo." At other times lie had to march up and down with a capstan bar, and on Sundays he was always set at work to learn tho ropes. After two months of this life the apprentice went aloft ono day, and then fell overboard and was drowned. On the day of his death he was ropes-ended, and at that time was m such a wrotched condition that ho looked like a skeleton. Complaint was made to tho Board of Trade, by some of the crew, and the Treasury instituted tho present proceedings. It was elicited from a fellow apprentice that he wrote home, and said deceased lost his life by his own carelessness, and that the captain treated him with kindness and consideration. This letter, however, he wrote under tho direction of the captain, and on returning to England, witness wrote another letter, and proceedings were taken. The master, who it was said protected the deceased lad, was sentenced to VZ months hard labor; but both the mate and boatswain wero sent to penal servitude for five years. [Br TBLEQEArn.]