The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-12-09

| for, so that the officer passing sentence | (who may have been personally az grieved) has time to think the matter over, and has no excuse for inflicting
 punishment in spirit of revenge. Only the most minor offences are al- l lowed to be thus dealt with, offences which, it Is safe to say, are in the ma- jority of cases peculiar to the navy, and
 would not be considered offences at all
 in private life Trivial as they may be regarded, nasty word, forgetfulness of
 duty, want of tidiness of cleanliness, it
 is on the rigid suppression of such "trifles'' as these that the beautiful
 condition of ship of war depends.
 For we need discipline, we Britons be-
 ing prone to take full advantage of any
 slackness on the part of those bearing
 rule. It is true that we love to choose
 for ourselves these latter, and are quick
 to resent the exercise of disciplinary
 powers by them if they fail to realize
 our ideal of manliness, but If they be
 men they may go far in severity toward
 us and we will willingly obey. | The first thing that strikes one in
 this report is the trivialty of the otal of
 serious offences noted-offences such as
 would be tried In a court ashore and are
 tried In the navy by courts martial.
 The total number of seamen and mari-
 ners afloat during the year under re-
 view 1898 was SS,261. This number of
 men, all in the prime of life, would
 account for the population of very
 large town indeed. And they are all
 confined In small spaces under condi- tions that to say the least do not make for righteousness, few of the social amenities and relaxations of ordinary life being open to them.
 Yet out of that army of full blooded men the total number tried by courts martial for all offences during the year was one hundred and ninety-nine! A percentage of the whole of .22. Surely this should afford every one of us mat ter for just pride But even this low percentage of offences for which courts martial were considered necessary will appear higher than the facts warrant if the nature of these offences is analysed. Owing to the clarity of the tables we are easily enabled to do this.
 For instance, the offence of which there are more cases than any other three times as many in fact-is striking and attempting to strike su- perlor officer '-serious enough, no doubt, in naval or military service, but \ bound to occur in the very nature of things on board ship, where numbers of high spirited men are confined to one another's company for long periods of time, and where the slight gradations of rank induce forgetfulness of superiority
 Petty officers mix so freely with the men that we cannot wonder that at times an angry man trips over the line that divides him from his superior, and becomes a candidate for a court mar- tial without being a criminal in the or dinary sense at all.
 Wilful dsobedience of orders accounts for forty-six cases, theft and embezzle- ment for forty-four but, be it noted, only sixteen of those were of the sea- man class, and further investigation would probably reveal that most, if not all, of the offenders were boys who had not yet learned2to appreciate the dignity of their calling.
 Mutiny none;' we have travelled long way from the awful conditions of life in the navy which culminated in the mu- tiny at the Nore: using profane lan- guage, none (the recording angel must have dropped perfect flood of tears over these lines): drunkenness, ten. This last item is sufficient to make one gasp. Ten cases of drunkenness call :, ing for court martial among nearly | ninety thousand sailors In year!
 Yet it is only one more proof of the hold obtained over our seamen by tenn perance principles, and it doubtless ac- counts for the gratifying paucity of all the other offences.
 Now, lest 1t should be thought that only very serious eases are entered as being tried by court martial, it may be well to state with considerable empha- Sis that this is certainly not the case. While was on board of the Mars boy was found to be In possession of money for which he could give no satisfactory account. It must be remembered that the leading seaman or petty officer at the head of each mess exercises quite parental supervision over the boys in 1is mess, which explains how such came to light. The boy was suspected. too, of other lapses from virtue.
 Upon the matter being reported in the lsual way sort of preliminary inqui- y was held, at which the boy stubborn y refused to say how he became pos- 'essed of the money. So the matter . vas held for court martial the same ull dread array that would have tried man for any crime. The prisoners friend" his counsel for his defence vas our torpedo lieutenant, and his &C., user, of course, was the captain.
 So we'll did the lieutenant do his part !