The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1860-04-11

Dri tish PAszantArepy and 0ratituds-
A Case nor the Humanitarians.
The English journals seldom lose On oppor-
tunity Of fingiSg In our faces the seventies
charged against the officers Of our mercantile
marine. We recently took occasion to show
that the harsh treatment occasionally COM
planned of by our sailors is owing more to the
faulty system Of manning our merchant ships
than to tyrannical or cruel despotism on the
part Of American shipmasters. There are but
few men placed In position of 80 much re-
sponsibility who will resort to harsh measures
if they can help It, The source Of the evil
lies, as we have stated, In system which gives
to the captains of vessels crews that can
only be acted upon by terrorism. They are
the very scum and refuse Of the service, and
are palmed off on shipowners by the boarding
house keepers and land sharks who make q
livelihood out Of the advance wages paid to
the sailor.
Admitting, for argument sake, that all the
reproaches cast on our commercial marine are
well founded, there are other sins which hap
PLY cannot be laid to its account We hear
of no complaints that the food of our
sailors is bad or insufficient or that
their bodily health is not sufficiently cared for
This cannot be said of the English merchant
service; in none other that we know of are
sanitary precautions more neglected, and the
health and comfort of the sailor rendered more
subordinate to the thirst of gain. Gould the
statistics of disease from these causes be col
lected from the two countries, it is certain that
ours would contra asst favorably with those of
the British marine, both naval and commercial.
A case is just now exciting storm
of indignation in England, which, but
for some peculiar features mixed up
with it, would probably have attracted
as little attention as the equally culpable
instances of inhumanity and disregard of life
which are constantly occurring on board Eng
lish vessels. The ship Great Tasmania sailed
from Calcutta on the 9th of November last with
935 men, portion of the disbanded troops of
the East India Company, on board During the
Crimean war this vessel had been used fire.
quently as troop ship, and was also employed
to take out in single voyages about thousand
men to Corfu, and nearly the same num-
Der to the Mauritius. OF her capaci-
ty of accommodation for such crowds
of human beings, some idea may be
formed from the fact that having been once
chartered as government emigration ship, the
number of her passengers was restricted to
four hundred. Where this regulation was
deemed necessary the presumption is that the
utmost care would have been taken to provide
against the consequences of packing into the
vessel more than double the quantity of pas
seDgers permitted under the emigration rules
What were the facts? The ventilating appara-
tus supplied by government was never once
used during the voyage; the biscuit was SO bad
that about 81, 900 pounds of it had to be thrown
overheard; the beef and beer were Of the
worst kind, and a portion of them had to be
disposed Of in similar manner; the water was
black and sometimes rusty, and the lime juice
was unfit to drink But this was not all: only
ten blankets had been served out by the Madras
government for hospital use on board; 30 that,
superadded to the maladies caused by I'M
wholesome provisions and bad ventila.
ton, the patients suffered dreadfully from
| cold. Under such circumstances it was
not surprising that when the ship ar
! rived at st. Helena nearly the whole
of the troops should be sick of dysentery and
scurvy. On touching there the number report
| ed on the doctors list was 1872, and between
that time and the arrival of the vessel in the
Mersey the total number Of deaths was upwards
of fifty. Several have since died in the Liver
| pool workhouse, and to the eternal disgrace of
the local authorities be it added, that amongst
the unfortunates who have been thrown help
less invalids into that institution are to be
found scores of that gallant band, five hundred
and eighty-four of whom had fought and put
to the rout thirteen thousand rebels on the
plains of Agra, a feat Lord Peterborough de-
clared, in the House of Peers, to be without
parallel in the annals Of warfare.
Here is a single case, which, in revolving in
humanity and recklessness of life, outweighs
all the complaints that have been accumulated
against the officers of our merchant ships. They
are the more inexcusable from the fact that the
government authorities in India are directly
responsible for them, and could have pre-
vented them by the exercise of little
care. The coroner's jury have found that
the provisions supplied by the government
as stores for the troops were bad and unfit for
human food, and that the captain and officers
of the ship were entirely free from blame.
One of the worst features of the case is, how
ever, in our opinion, that of the home govern
ment allowing the gallant men who served
their country so heroically on the battle field
of Agra to drag out the few remaining days Of
their existence on the hard pallets and hard
fare Of common workhouse. The ingratitude
Of such conduct is only to be equalled by the
criminal neglect which sacrificed lives so valu-
able. Let British philanthropists talk to us