Arizona republican., 1898-05-20

Section 1885 of the revised statutes of the United States provides:
 "A bounty shall be paid by the United States for each person on Doard any ship or vessel of war belonging to an enemy at the commencement of an engagement which is sunk or other wise destroyed in such engagement by any ship or vessel belonging to the United States, or which it may he nec- essary to destroy in consequence 0f injuries sustained in action, of $100, if the enemy's vessel was of. inferior force, and of $20O if equal or superior force, to be divided among the officers and crew in the same manner as prize money; and when the actual number Of men on board any such vessel can not be satisfactorily ascertained, it shall be estimated according to the complement allowed to vessels of it's class in the navy of the United States, and there shall be paid as bounty to the captain for any vessel captured from an enemy, which they are in structed to destroy, or which is imme- diately destroyed for the public inter est, but not in consequence Of injuries received in action, $50 for every per- BULL W AO Sult11 UC OA OO<SA 0 GkS IAO l1AAO of such capture. .vGi5 According to the reports from Ma nila the Spanish fleet destroyed by the Americans consisted of ten or eleven cruisers, gunboats and torpedo boats, with crews amounting to 1,872 men. At $100 for each, man of the Spanish naval force the amount to be divided among the American sailors will be $187 200. The vessels of the United States were, if anything, under manned. The numbers will be under rather than over 1,733. ot. The $187 200 will be distributed to the fleet under section 4631 of the re- vised statutes, relating to prize mon ey. Admiral Dewey will get one twentieth of the whole amount of bounty awarded to his command. That will give him $9 ,300.s If he has fleet captain or what passes for one, the lat ter will have a share of something like $1 800. There will be left to be dis tributed to the vessels of the fleet, according to their pay rolls, about $175, ,000. This will go to seven ships, and in about the following shares:
 Olympia, $45,000; Baltimore, $40, 900; Boston, $25, 1000; Raleigh, $22,000; Con- cord, s2O,Oo0; Petrel, $12.0Oo; McCul- loch, 5000.
 To the commander of each signal vessel there will go one-tenth amount assigned to that vessel. 2
 After the amounts mentioned have been deducted, the residue will be dis tributed to the lesser. officers and sea- men of the ships in proportion to their rates of pay on the day of engage ment The amount to each seaman, it is believed, will be in the neighbor- hood of $50. t :
 The law under which they have ae- quired title to bounty, has been so long in disuse in the navy department that none of the law officers remem- bered it until their attention was, di- rected to it. It was passed. in order to stimulate the destruction of south ern property during the civil war, but the law department of the navy has not come across any instances of it's application.
 Just how it is to be enforced does not occur to the department, but it is likely that when the matter is taken up the secretary of the navy will put the facts to congress and that an ap- expenditure on account of the bounty propriation will be made to meet the fund.