The Portland daily press., 1898-12-13

boat and the lives of the men on board of
her, liable to sumo severe penalties if
through any negligence, misbehavior or
unskilfulness ON his part life was
endangered on his boat One of the
statutes of the United Safes provides
that every captain, engineer, pilot,
or other person employed on any
steamb boat or vessel by reason of whose
misconduct, negligence or inattention to
his duties on such vessel tie life of any
person is DESTROYED shall be
sentenced to confinement at hard labor
for a period of not more than 10 years
Another statute provides THAI when ne
is guilty of negligence or unskii-
fulness by which life is endangered his
certificate shall be revoked. If against
his own Judgment he had run this boat
ont and sunk her he would have been
guilty of an act that would have deprived
him of his certificate, and had loss of life
resulted, he might have been imprisoned
for manslaughter. 1t would have been
no defence to say that the chief
engineer of the fire department ordered
him to take the risk for the law places in
his care and his alone the lives of the
men on board his vessel,
But even if we assume that these laws
are not applicable to the captain of fire
boat employed in municipal service still
we contend Captain Goud was justified
assuming of course that the facts of the
case were as stated to the committee. The
captain of the fire boat must have discre-
tion as regards perils of the sea, and 1t
must have been intended that he should
have such discretion and exercise 1T, else
the absurdity of selecting a man to take
charge of the fire boat because he Is
supposed to be skilled in navigation and
acquainted with the dangers Incident
thereto, and then nullifying the qualities
on account of which he was chosen by
enjoining upon him implicit and unques-
tiuning obedience to the chief engineer
of the department. who may not have and
generally does not have any knowledge OF
navigation at ALL OF course the city
council never intended to stultify itself,
and did not stultify itself in any such
way. 1t was intended that when an order
was given the captain of the tire boat,
the execution of which involved great sea
peril to his boat. he should use some dis
erection. 1t was never meant that he
should be so completely the servant OF the
chief engineer that he should obey to the
letter any order given him, even if 1t sunk
his boat or blew her away SO far from the
fire that she could not possibly be of any
use. The order given to Capt. Goud on
the night in question involved grave sea
peril, and hence was one TO which he
could properly apply his Judgment. The
only question remaining is whether
Capt Goud's Judgment was sound, wheth-
er there was SO strong probability OF his
boat being sunk or blown SO far away that
it could render no service as to justify
him in declining to obey the orders given
him The evidence on this point comes
from three men who have had very long
experience in running boats in this har-
Dor and who were present on the night of
the fire and saw the condition of the sea.
One of them, Capt Matthews, said:
If Capt. Cloud had taken that fire boat
round to Custom House wharf and up to
the wharf the boat would have been stove
to pieces. She could not live there for 10
minutes.
Another. Capt. A. S. Oliver, said:
Although 1 have been in all kinds of
seas and storms l would not have taken
the fire boat that night from Portland
| r,so ry rf Sha Wnnld
have smashed to pieces. Her sides would
have been stove in. In my opinion If she
had got round there she would now be
where the steamer Portland is, at the
bottom.
Mr. isaiah Daniels said:
1t was impossible to have taken the fire
boat round to Custom House wharf with
safety She would have smashed to pieces
against the wharf. Her sides would have
been beaten in and she would have gone
to the bottom. 1t was impossible for her
to have staid in the harbor and played
on the fire. She would have been taken
up toward Portland bridge.
This evidence was unimpeached and un-
oontradicted. 1t shows that Capt. Cloud
had to choose between disobedience--or
more properly non-execution-of the
chiefs orders and the destruction of his
boat, the latter not only involving the
loss of her value in money, but also of
her service at the fire, and perhaps also Of
several lives
The choice he made was the correct one.
the only one he could haze made without
being recreant to his duty, and the COM
mittee was right in generating him.
If he had undertaken to carry out the
order given him and sunk his boat 1t
would have been said and justly. too,
that it was his business to know the peril
involved in the order and his duty to take
cognizance of it. What sort of captain
is that people would have said, ''who
lays his boat alongside of a wharf and let's
her be smashed to pieces, y and his remov-
al would have been demanded for incom
potency and unskillfulness If he had
set up the defence that he was ordered
there by the chief engineer, everybody
would have said that he was expected to
use some discretion as regards the perils
of the sea-that that was what he was