The Sun.
London, England, 1869-12-30 00:00:00

ME SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 30, 1869.

MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.

witnout any sign or miantnegs, ne was puma lii cne
infirmary, and had hospital diet. But three inoril
inns later he died. The coroner expatiated, at
th
inquest, on the desirability of flogging for garotter.
—though . how this case can be likened -I.•
garotting is not clear; and the jury returned a ver
diet " in accordance with the medical evidenco:
Various indignant letters have been written on thi
" tragic act." The result is unhappy, certainly; bti.
if corporal .punishme#t is to be inflicted, errors of
judgment will occur.4netimes. There is no evidence
0 show that either doctor or the inspector was
guilty of cruelty. It isa curious and not altogether satis-
factory fact that the:death of this coßvict has made
more stir than half
~a dozen semi-murders in work-
hous

THE AD.3IIKAL 7'l AND 711 E COAST-

GUARD.

(From the Shipping and Alercantile Gazette.)
We learn that it is in contemplation to reduce

coostguArdscrvicelly the compulsory retire►vent of

the officers of that service known in the language
of the Admiralty as " civilians," in. contradiainc-

tion to those officers in the force who belong to the
Royal Navy. Against this reduction we have
entered our protest, as a melsure at once uncalled-
for and impolitic, and as having an immediate
tendency to impair the efficiency of a service

At which our merchants and shipowners, our ship-

masters and seamen, have a direct interest. The
Coastguard service, alrhough originally designed
for the protection of the revenue, Las sines the

gradual abolition of our system of import (luaus.

found opportunity for employment never con-
templated the early institution of the force; and
amongst the most important of the duties cast upon
the Coastguard by modern legislation are those con-
nected with the assistance of wrecked vessels and

the prottc.ion of wrecked property. In the dis-
charge of those duties the Coastguard render
constantly most valuable services, and most efficient

aid, to receivers of wreck, in dis'ricts where Eitel
assistance is of the last importance.

We have frequently to record—and it is at all

times a pleasure to do so—the gallant beha-
viour of coastguardsmen and their officers in
making •their way to wrecks, in working the
mortar and rocket apparatus, and in saving life
and property at great personal risk, where
but for the efforts of these men, the destruction of
both wag inevit►ble. Nor need such results surprise
those who know the manner of men who constitute
the Coastguard. The force is composed of picked

men, who have served an allotted term in the
Royal service, and who are placed in the Coast-
guard as a reward for good conduct and the long-
continued display of seamrn-liko qualities. Origi.

Daily the Coastguard of bers were all selected
from the Royal service. The work of protecting
the revenue at a time when smuggling was car-
ried on to an enormous extent, and arme I conflicts
with smuggling vessels and their crews were matters
of ordinary occurrence, necessitated the organisation
of a force well trained to arms, and commanded by
officers accustomed to act with, and to lead, fighting
men. But the gradual change which our commer-
cial policy has introduced, and with the decline of

the smugglers' trade, has disappeared in great mea-
sure the m cessity for officering the Coastguard
from the Royal Navy ; hence the appointment of
those " in officers," whose very efficient ser-
vices are about to be rewarded by summary dis-
missal, in order to confer their appointments on
naval officers who, as we haVe already observed,
may preft r service ashore to service afloat. If this
design be carried out we cto only say that an act
of gross oppression and injustice will be perpetrated
upon a number of most deserving men, so gross
and so indefensible that we do not believe it can
ever receive the sanction of Parliament.

The duty of the officers and crews of the Coast-
guard
stations is clearly enough defined in the Ad-
miralty instructions :—" T,, render all possible i
assistance to vessels in distress, and, in cases of
shipwreck, to use their utmost endeavours to save
the lives of the persons on board, and to save and
protect from plunder and embezzlement the rigging,
sails, stores, and cargo." We do not say that this
duty exhausts the functions and obligations of the
Coastguard, but we say it forms the most important
portion of those functions, and it has been, and is,per-
formed quite as well by officers trained, as they have
been in the merchant service, but who have never
served an hour on board a man-of-war, as by
officers who have gained all their professional know-
ledge in a Queen's ship. The assistance of wrecked
vessels, the salvage of life and property, and the
protection of that property when so salved, fall as
clearly within the category of civil, as distinguished
from military duties, as the preservation of order
in our streets and public pays by the police.
There is nothing, therefore, in the reason of the
thing to justify the decision at which it is said the
Lords of. the Admiralty have arrived. The most.
important duties discharged by the Coastguard
officers are emphatically civil duties. Those duties
have been well discharged by the " civilian officers"
—as efficiently, and in many instances much more
efficiently, than by the naval officers of the force.
The csmitemplated removal of these gentlemen, there-
fore, from t: e appointments where their services
have been fully tes!ed, can only be attrPuted to that
professional prejudice and professional greed which
would absorb all available patronage, ostensibly for
the behoof of naval officers on half-pay. It is in
the 611110 spirit that the professional members and
officials of the Admiralty have never ceased to
carp at and misrepresent the Royal Naval Re
serve; and now that the success of that enrol-
ment, and its availability for service, have been
fully demonstrated, there is a manifest disposi-
tion on the part of the Admiralty to take the
Naval Reserve in hand, and enter into the labours
which the Board of Trade have for 10 years bestowed
on that force with such marked and gratifying
results. As our readers aro already aware, the
contemplated changes in the officering of-the Coast-
guard have so far proceeded without any reference
to the Board of Trade. Considering the extensive
jurisdiction possessed by that department in matters
of wreck and salvage, and the duties cast by law
in those matters upon the Coastguard, it is some-
what surf rising that the Board of Trade should not
have been consulted with respect to changes which
may seriously impair the efficiency of the Coastguard
in the discharge of its civil functions. The Coast-
guard is not the creature of the Admiralty, it is a
national esabishment, and it is time that Parlia-
ment should interfere to prevent its being made
either the sport or convenience of profes ional in-
terests.