National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1881-04-28
Marooners and NARROWING.

biOIl, hllO1l uCN1 d NSt q"
species of punishment much in vogue
among sea-faring men some two hundred
years or SO ago.
In those days the captain or master OF
a ship held and exercised supreme au-
thority over the persons and lives even
of all who sailed with or under him. Upon
his own deck he could play the tyrant
with impunity, so far as laws to the
contrary were concerned; for if the VIC
tim of his injustice or cruelty survived
to reach port there was no adequate
power of redress to be found or, if any
such existed, it was so hampered by bur-
densome requirements as to be seldom
available, even when the sufferings oft
victim commended him to the sympa-
thetic feelings of the dispensers of JUS
tice
Under the Old order of things it was not
even customary to give an accused person
the bare form of trial Whoever fell
under the displeasnre of the despotic
sovereign of the quarterback was sum-
marily dealt with, and, guilty or innocent,
punished according to the momentary
whim of the petty tyrant whose DEGREES
were too often dictacted by personal pique
and malice.
Sometimes the unfortunate being was
slain by his judge; sometimes he was
hung at the yard-arm, or compelled to
walk the plank" and become an involun-
tary suicide; or he might be put to death
in more seeming, because less barbarous
manner, or be imprisoned until he per-
ished of inanition. Either mode of death
is fraught with all that is repugnant to the
kindly feelings of humanity, even when
administered by impartial justice upon
self-confessed criminal but none of them
appear to have fully satisfied the cruel
dispositions of the monarchs who sailed
the seas in that far off period oftime.
Spanish cruelty, then ever upon the
alert for new and improved means of tor
ture, at length hit upon means Of pun
ishment for real or fancied violations of
the maritime code, written and unwrit-
ten, so devilish in its nature that it at
once commended itself to each brutal in
stinct on shipboard, and soon became the
punishment par ercelleRce in all cases
where murder outright was to be avoided
or the very refinement of cruelty was de-
sired; and this. method of punishment,
known as marooning," speedily grew in
favor among the ignorant and the lawless,
and was adopted by them, as well as by
many high above them in the social scale,
as the vehicle for wreaking personal spite
and gratifying a malicious desire for ven-
geance.
The buccaneers of the Spanish main
and the pirates infesting the Caribbean
and other seas, finding that marooning"
was more dreaded than any other species
of torture, or than even death itself, en-
ployed it for the purpose Of reducing re-
fractory and insubordinate seamen to
submission.
Directing his vessel to some barren
reef or uninhabited inlet out of the usual
course Of travel, the commander Of the
craft, or " marooner," would set the real or
pretended malefactor ashore without COM
pass, or arms, or means for escape, and
oftentimes with only scanty supply of
provisions, and there abandon him to
his fate. Occasionally it might happen
that the unfortunate Maroon" af-
ter months of anguish, would be
rescued by some passing sail; but it
is to be feared that the contrary was too
the case. There are numerous
instances recorded of vessels, driven out
of their course by stress of weather or
other cause, coming upon some rocky
promontory jutting up from the sea, Or
some low-lying island, and finding the
remains of what had once been a man,
together with a rudely-kept diary show
ing the skeleton to be that of one who
had there been wantonly abandoned to a
lingering and terrible death.
As we look back over these incidents of
a barbarous age we shudder at the very
thought of such cruelty being inflicted
upon any human being. Man is a social
animal, and to be left alone-entirely So
for days, weeks, months, and perhaps
years, with little or no hope of succor at
the start, and that hope growing weaker
and weaker as time passes, is sufficient to
wreck the strongest intellect, even if the
physical body does not in the meantime
Succumb. Happily for those who follow
the sea, however, marooning," at least
among civilized nations and people, is at
an end.
But, unfortunately, the custom still
exists in modified form in many coun-
tries. 1t is practiced in our own, and by
those who claim the right of being con-
sidered the polar stars of society-the
very centres of the social systems in
which men and women revolve.
For instance: Mrs. A, leader of So
ciety, is offended with Mrs. B, who moves
in the same circle, and forthwith sends
her to Coventry" which is only another
and the polite name for marooning"
Thereupon Mrs. B. is tabooed-cut
away from-turned adrift ft-avoided-let
alone =; and, so far as social intercourse
among her former acquaintance is con-
cerned, she might just as well be the
solitary occupant of desert island a
thousand miles from civilization The
finer her intelligence and the higher
her education the heavier the inaiction.
At first, when Mrs. A. ceases to visither
she may not mind the slight; but as an
other and yet another of her supposed
friends drop away the arrow enters her
soul, though, perhaps, her pride may for
a season keep back the groans she feels
like uttering. At length not one friendly
caller of all her old circle darkens her
door. She is as secure from visitors of her
own social sphere as though the flag of
e