The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-11-29
TIE MIGNONETTE CANNIBALS.
The Right of Man to Kill His Fellow to
Save His Own Life-A Novel Question.
London Standard.

AT the Exeter asslZeS, yesterday, MI Baron
Huddleston, in charging the grand jury, alluded
at considerable length to the circumstances and
the law bearing on the charge against Captain
Thomas Dudley and Edwin Stephens, the master
and mate of the yacht Mignonette, who are &C
cused of the murder of boy named Parker on
the high seas The judge said tine Mignonette,
q yacht of nineteen tons, was being sent out to
Australia and the prisoner, Dudley, man of
exemplary character, great experience and cour-
age, applied for and obtained the place of master
on board of her. She sailed from Southampton
for Sidney on the 10Th of May, the crew con-
sisting of Dudley, Stephens Brooks, an able
bodied seaman, and Parker, boy about seven
teen or eighteen. They touched at Madeira,
crossed the equator, where they fell into very
foul weather, and when about sixteen miles
from the Cape of Good Hope, on the 9th of July,
in a very severe storm, the Mignonettes star
board quarter was smashed by a huge sea, and
her side knocked in. The captain endeavored to
obtain from the cabin some means of sustenanee
to put on board the boat which was lowered,
but the Mignonette went down before he was
able to obtain more than two one pound tins of
turnips. The three men and the boy were left
in the boat without anything to drink, and with
nothing to eat except the two tins of turnips.
On the fourth day they managed to catch
small turtle, upon which they subsisted for
few days, and this was the only food they had
up to the twentieth day, when the occurrence
took place out of which this charge arose.
By the eleventh or twelfth day the turtle was
entirely consumed, and for the next eight days
they had nothing to eat. They had no fresh
water. and from time 70 time only succeeded in
catching some few drops of rain in their oilskin
coats. On the eighteenth day, having been
seven days without food and five without water,
the three men discussed the question what was
to be done if no succor came, and considered
whether would not have to be sacrificed for
the purpose Of affording food for the rest. The
captain suggested that this sould be decided by
the drawing OF lots, but it was not agreed to.
Indeed Brooks seemed to have sternly dissented
from it. The boy Parker, who was not then i'll,
did not seem to have been consulted. Captain
Dudley in one of his many statements, all of
which agree, said that on the day before they
Killed the boy he proposed to Stephens and
Brooks that they should cast lots who should
die for the maintenance of the others, but they
would not agree to it. Brooks refused, saying
that he did not wish anybody to kill him. Dud-
ley and Stephens talked over the number of
their families. and Dudley suggested that it
would be better that they should kill the boy
Parker in order that their lives might be saved
Dudley further said: IF there is no vessel in
sight by to morrow morning, / think we had
better kill the lad
No vessel appearing on the following morn
ing made signs to Stephens and to Brooks
that we had better do it, but they seemed to
have no heart to do it, so I went to the boy, who
was lying at the bottom of the boat with his
arms over his face. l took out my knife, first
Offering prayer to God to forgive us for what
we were about to do, and for the rash act, that
our souls might be saved, and said to the boy:
Richard your time has come The boy said:
What me, sirP l said: Yes, my boy 1 then
put my knife in there [pointing to the side of
his neck, opposite to the side over which he had
his arm. |" The captain, in his statement went
into details of the cannibalism of the three men,
This statement made by Dudley was not sub
stantaly varied in any of his other statements,
nor was it contradicted by the deposition of
Stephens, or the evidence of Brooks, who would
be called as a witness Brooks clearly took no
part in the death of the boy. Dudley, Stephens
and Brooks fed upon the body for the next few
days; on the twenty fourth day they were picked
upiby German bark, the Montezuma, in fear.
full state of prostration and ultimately brought
to Falmouth.
The judge continued: 1t seems clear that the
taking away of the boys life was carefully con
sidered, and amounted to a case of deliberate
homicide. l must now tell you what | consider
to be the law as applicable to this case. 1t is a
matter that has undergone considerable discus
sion, and it has been SAID that it comes within
class of cases where the killing of another is ex-
cusable on the ground of necessity l can find
no authority for that proposition in the recog
nized treatises on the criminal law, and l know
of no such law in the law of England Baron
Puffendorf, in his Law of Nature and Nations
mentions a case where 5 ven Englishmen, tossed
on the ocean without meat drink. killed one
of their number on whom the lot fell, and who
had las ne says the courage not to be dissatisfied
asSuagng in some measure with his body their
intoleTable and aimostfamished condition. whom,
when they at last came to shore, the judges alb
solved of the crime of murder. Although he
says the sailors were English sailors, he does not
say where the case tried, or of what Nation
were the Judges. "Seigler upon Grotus giving
this relation is of opinion that the men We're all
guilty of a great sin for conspiring against the
life of one of the company, and (if it should hap
pen) everyone against his own. / can find no
trustworthy report of this case, and, for reasons
which shall refer to presently L cannot con-
slider it an authority binding on me. There is
an American case, ''Commonw wealth VS.. Holmes,
reported in / Wall, jr., in which sailors threw
passengers overheard to tighten boat and it
was held that the sailors ought to have been
thrown overheard first, unless they were re-
quired to work the boat, and that at all events
the particular persons to be sacrificed ought to
have been decided by ballot, by which, l sup.
pose, they mean by lots.
l cannot subscribe to the authority Of this
case; besides, it would be napplicable to the
present because here the notion of deciding by
lots was neglected. The learned American
Judge, in giving his reasons said the selection
should be by lot as il would be an appeal to
providence to choose the victim. Such q reason
would seem almost to verge upon the bias
phemous. l cannot hut consider that the taking
of human life by appealing to the doctrine of
chance would really seem to increase the delib-
Grafton with which the act had been committed
That American case, however, was charge not
of murder, but of manslaughter on the ground
of the failure the part of the prisoners TO dis
charge the statutory duty of preserving the life
of passenger The question has been consid-
cred by the criminal code bill commissioners
very high authority-in their report, in which,
discussing this doctrine, they say: 'Casuits
have for centuries amused Themselves and may
amuse themselves for centuries to come by
speculation as to the moral duty of two per
sons in the water struggling for the possession
of plank capable of supporting only one If
ever case should come for decision in a court
of justice, which is improbable, it may be found
that the particular circumstances render it easy
of solution.
I'VE certainly are not prepared to suggest that
necessity should in every case be a justification
We are equally unprepared to suggest that ne