APPENDIX
A few days after our arrival at San Francisco, Louis Jacquin was brought for trial at that port before the United States Commissioner. He made an excellent defence; so good, indeed, that after due consideration of both sides of the case, the commissioner was compelled to discharge him, and Louis walked forth a free man. This was a just and most satisfactory termination of the matter, though I would have liked to see Rarx properly punished for his treatment of Karl et al. In truth, Karl, Brün and Pettersen did prefer charges against both mates, who were held for trial; but when the case came up no witnesses appeared against them, for the very good reason that the three men were shanghaied aboard a New York bound ship by the boarding masters, thus pursuing the usual course in such matters. Rarx recovered in a short time, and no doubt is at this moment stamping on some poor fellow whom he has beaten down with the ever-present belaying-pin.
While this book was in press, there arrived at San Francisco one of our most widely known Cape-Horners. The men related stories of unusually shocking cruelties on the part of the captain as well as the officers, and the second mate was held in five hundred dollars bonds. Two of the sailors testified, on separate occasions, to this incident: While wearing off the Horn one day, the second mate struck a sailor down with a capstan-bar and was kicking him heavily in the head, when the mate yelled from the poop, “That’s right, kick the life out of him”; to which the second mate replied, “I would kill him if we were only bound to Hong-Kong.”
Is this the way our consuls protect the lives of men under the flag? What is the matter with our Eastern consular service that men may be killed on our ships (as they have been), and the murderers go free upon landing at Chinese and Japanese ports? A delightful travesty, indeed, upon our exalted civilization.
THE END.