The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-12
CRUELTY TO SEA MEN

CRUELTY TO SEAMEN
WE yesterday published an interesting and
important general order that had just been
issued by the Secretary of the Navy, revoking
the sentence of q court-martal in the case of
an ordinary seaman named Joseph King,
serving on board the United States ship
Portsmouth. Secretary Robson has alluded
in forcible terms to the difficulty of obtaining
good men for the navy, and to the great i'm
portance of making the naval service popular
with seamen. He has also shown himself in
this and other instances disposed to use
his authority to protect the enlisted men
from the oppression of their officers, and by
SO doing he has taken one of the first steps
towards making the service popular. =. 1t will
certainly add to the efficiency of the navy if
the enlisted men can be made to feel that
their rights will receive from the Secretary
proper consideration, and that any attempt at
cruelty or illegal punishment on the part of
those in authority over them will be promptly
checked. In the court-martial case referred
to the sentence imposed upon King was re-
mitted by the Secretary, because previous to
his trial be had been severely and adequately
punished, but in an irregular and cruel man
ner, and it is intimated plainly that the
officers concerned in the matter will be made
to feel in q decided manner the displeasure
of the head of the department.
The man King appears to have been a good
for-nothing scoundrel, one of a class of men
who enlist in the army or navy in preference
to taking their chances of the penitentiary or
gallows on shore. His offenses were such as
l. oil 10
without severe punishment-unless by doing
away altogether with discipline; and if he
had been punished in a proper and legal
manner, there would have been few to find
fault with the sentence, no matter how severe
it might have been. But the principle that
man may be punished two or three times for
the same offense, and at the discretion of
angry officers who have been the objects of his
personal abuse, cannot be countenanced in the
navy or anywhere else under free govern
ment.
King it seems applied the most abusive
and foul-mouthed epithets to the captain,
executive officer and others on several occa-
sions; he tried to desert, and when arrested
in the act of desertion he brandished boat
hook and threatened the officers who arrested
him.
All this, however, offers no excuse for the
officers of the Portsmouth, who took the law
in their own hands, in the first place, by con-
fning him in double irons on bread and
water for thirty days, with loss of pay for
three months and extra police duty for three
months; by confning him in the launch of
the Portsmouth with his feet ironed to ring
holf hioh dc ip 10 fba hur
ing rays of the sun, he being forced to re-
main in that position without food or drink
for number of hours, after which he was
gagged and placed in a sweat-box until his
health was so affected that medical treatment
was necessary.
The laws of Congress for the better govern
ment of the navy, and the regulations issued
by the Secretary under those laws, prohibit
in express terms nearly every mode of punish
ment adopted in this case; and the officers
| who perpetrated the outrage have done much
more than the miserable wretch who was in
their power to impair the discipline and eff
cheney of the naval service. They are sup
posed to be intelligent and enlightened gen.
tlemen, and they have no excuse whatever
for violating the laws and it is to be hoped
that Secretary Robson will take measures to
have them punished as they deserve. The
sentence of the court-martial in the case of
Lieutenant Commander Seely, to which we
had occasion to allude not many weeks ago,
shows that there is an indisposition in naval
courts-martial to do exact justice when Off
GERS are accused of cruelty to the men under
their command; and the Secretary owes it to
the service and to the country to exert all his
power to have an example made in this case
that will serve as perpetual warning to Off
GERS who are disposed to transgress the laws
~, 7 ,,c,s, ,r,rpp of VIRGINIA with viaw