The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1898-06-04

Spanish sailors forward are i'll treated
hsbitually by their officers. This is not a
p,cjudiced or an exaggerated statement.
i is literally true. The officers OF the
Spanish navy are for the most part youn-
ger sons of good families who have gained
their billcts not by ability nor through
competition, but through the intercession
of their people at the court. The incapae-
ity of many Of them is ~laughable. Their
cruelty is notorious. From the very day
that o. Spaniard is enlisted in the ships
company Of one of his country's war YES
sels-enlistcd voluntarily or involuntarily
he is made to feel that he is no better
thar a beast. For the slightest infraction
of regulations he is punished in a fashion
that makes hisfellow bluejackcts in navies
like our own or that of Great Britain
flush with anger. The central n con-
suming idea Of the Spanish naval officer,
SAYS O writer in tho New York Sun, is that
all hands forward are his servants. There
is absolutely nothing of this in the Amer
lean navy. Once in awhile when an
( American ship is at sea for a considerable
period in tropical waters and all hands,
fore and aft, are wearing white uniforms,
an officer viii pay a mess attendant for
scrubbing one of his uniforms and hang
ing it out on the scrub and wash line. The
officer who requests q man to do anything
/ like this stands by to have the man rcfuss.
1t is the mans privilege to refuse outright
| to pcrforl such a task for money or other
J wise, but If he accepts the job he is well
paid for it. In the Spanish navy every
/ man forward, from the chief petty officers
down to the unrated landsInen, 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 blackcn
the officers shoes or pipec1ay their belts
they are commanded to do these things
and tasks more mental, more r~epugnant
to men of self respect, n the slightest
Indication of hesitancy on the part of 8
bluejacket is visited by heavy punishment
When a Spanish officer gets it in for a
chief petty officer for any real or fancied
cause, he does not Immediately undertake
to secure the petty officers disrating. In
stead he begins systematically to humili-
ate the petty officer. He calls him vile
names in the hearing of the unrated blue
Jackets and not ~infrcquently kicks him.
He calls him aft, especially when the petty
officer is showing a party of women visit
ors about the ship, and orders him to
blacken his shoes right in sight of all
hands and all the visitors on the main
deck. The writer was a visitor on board
a Spanish gunboat at Cadfz a few years
ago and saw a chief petty officer, the
ships signal quartermaster, treated in,
this manner by a junior lieutenant. FiE
nal1y after the Spanish officer who con-
ceivcs a dislike for a petty officer has abus-
ed and Inundated the man for weeks or
months at u stretch he cooks up a set OF
charges against the wretch and has the
man court martialed aid reduced from his
rating to that Of an 9 binary seaInan
The Spanish bluejsc ket, standing at at
tention during the progress of a drill. may
never know when he is to get the fiat or
even the edge of a sword across his back,
welded BY an officer of somewhat inlpul-
sive disposition, as Blanco might describe
an officer who would order tho massacre
of the inmates Of a hospital maintained by
Cubans. Spanish bluejackcts have been
known to be manned for life by such vis-
itations Of wrath on the part Of officers.
Tho regulation nnd approved punishments
prescribed for the correction" of offend
ers aboard ship in the Spanish navy com
monty render their victims incapable of
performing n sort Of labor either ashore
or af1oat after they have been thoroughly
through the mill.
The stanchion punishment is employed
for the most trivial offenses in the Spanish
navy. The blucjacket who breaks his lib
erty by a few hours knows that he Is in
for the stanchion lash when he returns
aboard. The Spanish sailors who deserted
their ships by the score in New York at
the time of the centenary celebration in
1889 were most OF them liberty breakers
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