Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-04-13 00:00:00

THE CASE OF ARCHIBALD MITCHELL.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE NORTHERN TI3IES.
Sir,—Having carefully considered the evidence brought
against the two engineers of the Bogota, both before Mr.
Marrfield, and during the trial, which has resulted in the
conviction of Mitchell for manslaughter, and his condemna-
tion to fifteen years penal servitude, will you kindly give a
place in your paper to the following, in which I conceive
I have rationally shewn, that, instead of a convict, sen-
tenced to undergo such a grevious penalty, he should be
tiow at large, a free man, without a stain on his character.
begin by urging the impossibility of realizing to the
minds of men who have never occupied the same position,
the difficulties, and irritating provocations, to which the
officers and engineers of foreign going steam ships—the
latter especially, from their men never having been
accustomed to the descipline in which sailors are trained—
are constantly subjected. However graphically and forcibly
these annoyances may be described, I venture to assert, that
the mind which has had to 'endure, can alone realize them.
Most people on land have experienced provecation frem
employees; whether male or female, let 'them try to'recall
the feeling, it-may be passions, to which these gave rise ;
let them reflect, how aggravated and even-unbearable they
would become, if from them there were no -escape, that day
by day they would have to be borne, this very knowledge
increasing the delinquents power to annoy, and they may
have a faint idea, how an engineer's 'patience and forbear-
ance is tried.
The business of a -coal-trimmer is not one to -which an
apprenticeship is seri ed, youth, and a robust appearance,
are the criteriom which recommend him to the engineer,
'who selects his men -with a view to training them as firemen ;
he is generally taken from a class of men who have no fixed
occupation, who have difficulty in earning a livelihood on
shore, and who, for the most part, have had to endure all
the privations which poverty entails. Having possibly never
been subjected to constraint when a boy, he looks upon
the very mildest 'discipline as tyranny. T forbear giving a
detailed list of his possible delinquencies, but it has a wide
range—from the petty pilfering of the ship's stores, to his
besetting sin, that of neglecting to pass the coals through
the basket, and guessing at 'his tallies, -whereby the esti-
mated quantity consumed, and, in consequence, that
remaining on board, are falsffied. But in no instance have
I ever known one of the very worst characters to knock off
work, if in fair health, on account of the heat, which in the
bunkers I have noted as high as 112 or 115 degrees. The
deceased man, Landor, was a miner, and as such must have
bad to work in high temperatures and vitiated air. In this
country miners work all but naked. One of the best fire-
men I possibly ever knew had been a collier. Artificial, or
chemical heat, is not nearly so enervating as atmospheric,
or sun heat. A man may work with less prostration in a
higher temperature of the former than of the latter. I say
this from experience, and-without attempting to account for
it. It not only tends to show that -the direct ray has an
influence in sun-stroke, but to explain the apparent
anomaly that, in this case, some of the deck crew, whose
duties were lightened, were knocked up from exhaustion,
when the firemen and trimmers who performed their usual
work, and under a higher temperature too, were not. If it
does not; this anomaly can only be accounted for by the
supposition that the heat of the stoke-hole has been much
exaggerated ; and of this also I have no doubt. From
these considerations, I claim the right to deduce that, it
Landor was honestly unable to do the work which others,
and among them a sick and an older man, were doing, he
must have had some organic disease, of which neither
the doctor, nor possibly himself, knew, and of which
the two engineers could not possibly know. - On the
other hand, were it clearly shewn that he had
no such disease, I would as certainly conclude that
he was skulking, and deserved punishment; the circum-
Cumstances all tend towards the latter view. The doctor
had examined him on the 24th, and found him in good
health, but with a difficulty in breathing. Again, on the
25th, the day on which he died---and he seemed well able to
do his work---all the other men, and among them the sick
one, were doing them. He had, though always complain-
ing of the heat, contrived to do his work tilt the ship arrived
at Rio, well knowing that, if he knocked off, he would either
be discharged there, or have to pay his passage home. It
is said, he at one time intended doing this, but changed his
mind, and why ? From what he had endured before
arrival, it cannot be said he was ignorant of what was'
before him for some time. After leaving, why should he
lave changed his mind ? Rio once astern, and his passage
secure, he could knock off, and have his money still in his
pocket. This is no mere fancy---the circumstances warrant
the suspicion ; and I have known of similar cases before. I
ask, were the engineers not justified in deeming him a '
skulker?

Having, as I think, established this point, I now proceed
to consider Buchannan's assumption of the right to inflict
punishment. I concede the paint that the captain is, and
should be, the proper person to have that power, but it is
acknowledged that the engineer was allowed to punish by
'Stopping grog---nothing else. Did the captain, when he
and Buchannan first sailed together, give instructions to that
effect? It does not,appear that he did; and if he tacitly
allowed the infliction of minor punishments, where was his
active authority to begin ? In all that class of ships, the
chief officer takes the entire active control of the deck, the
chief engineer that of the engine department. Should
{hose under either question their authority, and refuse to
carry out a legal and reasonable order, they would certainly
be punished, either by being disratcd at sea, or dismissed at
the end of the voyage. And should a deck officer be
aggrieved by the conduct of any one in the engine depart-
ment, the matter would be represented by him to the
engineer. If it be said this is done by courtesy, still it
is the practice. The engineer also engages and discharges
his own men. When steam was first applied to the propul-
sion of ships, the engine and its arrangements were as new
to the captaiu as the discipline of the ship was to engineers,
and those under them. Engine-makers not seldom con-
- tracted to uphold their work for a term, and mostly always
claimed the privilege of appointing the men to manage it.
• These were thus led to look to the makers as the parties to
whom they were responsible, and collisions between the two
departments were of frequent occurrence. To this day, a
jealousy, the result of this, fostered by the fact that the
engineers are appointed by a shore official, exists. Captains
• have, I believe, the privilege of rejecting, but never, in
'such companies, the power of appointing an engineer. If
„pis does' not justify, it certainly extenuates, Bachannan's
*duct in giVing the order, the reasonableness
of which may be now considered. I admit the punishment
is not one I would have resorted to ; but as much from the
'obstruction the position offered to the other men at their
work, as from a fear of permanent injury to a healthy man,
:n which Landor was presumed to be, resulting. I have already
given one reason for supposing that the temperature of
the stoke-hole has been exaggerated. The Attorney-
:, General is reported to have said, that " soon after he was
tied, the fireman went down and fired, put on fresh coals,
2): and cleaned out the fires in all the six furnaces,
and then went away," &c. Now, what is meant by
" cleaning out the fires in all the six furnaces ?" Literally
understood, the thing could not be done; but I take It
something more than putting coals on was done —I will
suppose that he " pricked" the fires as the most likely, and,
if so, Wilson must have been most miraculously benefitted
by having been in irons for not having done enough work ;
for the time, five or six minutes, beyond which, in another
part of his address, the Attorney-General says, nobody could
remain in the position, is too short for even the bare opera-
tion'of firing. It should also be remembered that this work
must; of necessity, have been done opposite each furnace,
and as close to them as the deceased, who was not opposite,
was tied. Again, it had taken half,an-hour to put out the
ashes, and some of the men must have been continuously
below during that time, filling the buckets, and firing when
it came their turn, If, by there being "no air stirring,"
it is meant there was a dead calm, the ship moving at the
rate or eight knots an I}olg would create a breeze of that