The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-08-28
SPANISH SAILORS LIFE.
1t Is Made Up of Mental Tasks and Sc
we're Punishments.
Boston Advertiser.

Boston Advertiser.
1.-The Spaniards do not know how to fight
their ships said naval officer. Il am per-
fectly confident that George Dewey could
have exchanged fleets with the Spanards
in Manila harbor and then have given them
almost as sound drubbing as he did with
his own fleet"
The same opinion has been expressed by a
large number of American naval officers
who are familiar with the principles upon
which the Spanish navy is run.
1t is asserted that a majority of the Span
ish sailors are from inland Spain. The
Spanish merchant sailors, the men living
aboard war ships, knew too we'll the cruel
ties and hardshps inflicted upon men for
ward in their country's naval service to put
themselves in the way of being trapped
into it.
Spanish petty officers, even within the last
five years, have been ambuscaded ashore
and killed by shipmates that they have thus
shanghaied.
Spanish sailors forward are ill treated ha-
bitually by their officers. This is not a pref
udiced or an exaggerated statement. 1t is
literally true. The officers of the Spanish
navy for the most part younger sons
of good families who have gained their bill
lets not by ability nor through competition,
but through the intercession of their people
at the court.
The incapacity of many of them is laugh
able; their cruelty is notorious. From the
very day that a Spaniard is enlisted in the
ships company OF one OF his countrys war
VeSSelS-enliSted voluntarily or inVOlunt9rilv
he is made to feel that he is no better than
a beast.
For the slightest infraction of regulations
he is punished in d fashion that makes his
fellow blue jackets in navies like our own
and that of Great Britain flush with anger.
The central and consuming idea of the
Spanish naval officer is that all hands for
ward are his servants.
In the Spanish navy every man forward,
from the chief petty officers down TO the
unrated landsmen, stand by for a trick as
Wallets for all the officers aft. They are not
asked to wash the officers linen; they are
not requested to blacken the officers shoes
ar hPltS-fleV
to do these things and tasks more mental,
more repugnant to men of Self-reSDect; end
the slightest indication of hesitaacy en- the
part of blue jacket is visited by heavy
When a Spanish officer gets it in for a
chief petty officer for any real or !ancied
cause he does not Immediately rnGerlaEc to
secure the petty officers disrating. Irstead
he begins systematically to humiliate the
He calls him vile names in the hearing of
the unrated blue jackets and not infrequent-
ly kicks him.
He calls him aft-especially when the
petty officer is showing party of women
visitors about the ship-and orders him to
blacken his shoes, right in sight of all
deck.
The Spanish blue jacket. standing at at
tention during the progress of drill, may
never know when he is to get the fiat, or
even the edge, of a sword across mis- back
welded by an officer of somewhat impul-
sive'' disposition, as BlancO might describe
an officer who would order the massacre
of the inmates of a hospital maintained by
CubanS.
The stanchion punishment is employed for
the most trivial offenses in the Spanish
navy. The blue jacket who breaks his lib
erty by few hours knows that he is In for
the stanchicn lash when he returns aboard.
The rule o. thumb is another common
punishment in the Spanish navy-the sus-
pending of offenders by the two thumbs. so
that their feet barely touch the ground,
from overhead gratings.
Another feature of the punitive system is
the solitary and fish, infliction.
This consists of locking up a minor Of
fender in an unlighted and practically un-
ventilated compartment and In feeding him
upon salt fish and no water whatsoever for
q couple Of days at stretch.