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October 1, 1898.
valley of that river till it can be carried across to Tali-fu, on the Urh-Hai Lake; from there it will continue northward again till it meets the east and west range holding the Yangtse to this course and will then turn sharp to the eastward, entering the Yangtse Valley through a fracture in the intersecting hills. It is not the intention of this paper to follow it further than this point, as the debateable ground has I been covered. The route indicated will be found fairly well populated, the latter portion. through northern Yunnan, carrying quite a large population owing to its vicinity to the densely populated province of Szechuen.
CHARGE AGAINST A SCHOOL- MASTER.
At the Magistracy on 28th September, be- fore Commander Hastings, W. Manners, fourth master at the Diocesan School and Orphanage, was charged with assaulting a school boy named Hong Ui Sing: Mr. Hursthouse appeared for complainant and Mr. Gedge for defendant..
The story told by complainant was that at about half-past eight on the evening of Tuesday week he was having a bath when he heard defendant call out to him. Defendant afterwards looked over the parti tion into the bath-room. When witness came out defendant struck him on the head, first with his open hand and then with his clenched fist. Ho subsequently made him kowtow to him and theu dragged him upstairs to bed.
In answer to Mr. Gedge, complainant said de. fendant did not tell him to go to bed before he struck him. If he had told him to go upstairs he would certainly have gone up. When he come out of the bath-room he did not commence
playing. Hedid not hear Mr. Manners ask him to come out of the bath-room. Mr. Manners told him to kowtow to him and while he was on the
flocr he banged his head. He told Mr. Piercy the following morning.
Hui Wai Hing, another school-boy, said he remembered Tuesday night of last week. Con plainant was bathing and Mr. Manners told him to close the tap. When complainant came out of the bath room Mr. Manners struck him. Witness was in No. 6 bath room, and he saw what took place by standing on a stool, As soon as he saw Mr. Manners strike com- plainant he got down from the stool again.
In answer to Mr. Gedge witness said that some little time ago at complainant's suggestion he ran away from school. He stayed away two days, but complainant stayed away longer.
Mr. George Piercy, the head master, said that on Wednesday morning of last week complainant told him that Mr. Manners had boxed his ears the previous evening. He said his head was sore and he could not hear properly. Witness noticed a slight discolouration over the right es, but be did not notice anything over the eye at the time. Mr. Mauners told him the boy had disobeyed him and he had struck him with his open hand. It was contrary to the rules of the school for any of his assistants to strike a boy over the head.
In reply to Mr. (edge, witness admitted that this rule had been put in the book since the assault, but added that it was anderstood before, and that it was a matter about which he spoke to Mr. Manners when he first came. Complainant went away on the 5th September and stayed away a fortnight. When he came back on the 19th he was punished. The boy was very troublesome. Defendant took great interest in the boys. He was a humane man, and it was improbable that he would assault complainant in the manner described.
Dr. F. O. Stedman, who said he examined complainant on the 24th instant, put in a cer- tificate which showed that be found on the boy's head three bruises which must have been caused by some violence. One bruise was two- and-a-half by half-an-inch and was over the bone behind the right ear, and the others were over the eyes. He should think the bruises were caused four days before.
Mr. Gedge, in addressing the Court for the defence, said it might appear a small matter for a boy to bring a charge of this sort against a schoolmaster, but it was a very serious thing for defendant, and he asked his worship to bear this in mind in giving his decision. He sub- mitted that the evidence of complainant as t the assault was totally unworthy of belief. His
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
story was that he did not know why he was bit. He admitted on behalf of defendant that a technical assault was committed. He boxed the boy's ears, but with no more severity than was generally used by schoolmasters, and this he submitted defendant bad a right to do,
Defendant was bound over in his own re- cognisances of five cents to be of good behaviour for oue day.
1HE MUTINY ON BOARD H.M.S. “HERMIONE IN 1797.
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The latest addition to the British squadron
269
tive wires, with whom they proceeded to Pit- cairn Island, where they burnt the ship and set- tled down. After a lapse of some years, the Pandora, frigate. was sent out to look for the mutineers, but Lieut. Christian and many more had died in the interval, so that only a few were captured and brought in irons to England (in · another ship, the Pandora having been wrecked on the passage home), where several suffered the last penalty of the law, the remainder re- ceiving the King's pardon. Amongst the lat- ter was a Lieut. Peter Heywood. Of the whole only one man (John Adams, A.B.) escaped, and he died a natural death, leaving numer-
on
having been born a Thursday in the month of October. The descendants of these interesting people can still be met with at Tahiti Island, where they had emigrated from Pitcairn Island, as enough water to meet their increased wants could not be had at the latter place.
This digression is necessary to show how even executive officers on board the King's ships were treated by captains of the stamp of Bligh, and well might Lieut. Christian cry out
"
I'm in bell; I have been in hell for the last fortnight" an exclamation imputed to Chris- tian when Capt. Bligh remonstrated with him as he was being thrown into the boat.
ous descendants. Lieut Christian left a son, - on the China Station, the Hermione, recalls to the mind of the student of naval history aby name Thursday October Christian, he mutiny which broke out on board a ship of the same name at the close of the last century. Unlike the generality of mutinies, several of which unfortunately had occurred in the British navy, now on board single ships and again in large fleets, viz, the mutiny on board the Windsor Castle (flagship of Rear Admiral Robert Linzee) at San Fiorenzo Bay, on the 10th November, 1794; that on board the St. George (Capt. Peard) off Cadiz, in 1797; and the more general ones of the fleet at Spithead on the 15th April, 1797, at the Nore on 10th May, 1797, and of the squadron at the Cape of Good Hope in October, 1797, the mutiny bu board the Hermione had its counterpart only, and that very faintly, in the mutiny on board the Bounty (Capt. Bligh) on the 28th April, 1798, and that which occurred on the Dana (Capt. Lord Proby) on the 15th March, 1780, but these last pale before the terrible emeute which was enacted on board the Hermione, the subject of this article, just 101 years ago last Thursday, and which, when the details became known, caused Europe and America to ring with horror at the despicable and dastardly act. The con- viction was, however, forced on the public that the inhumanity of her commander was the sole cause of the vengeance that was wreaked on him and the innocent ones that suffered with him. Truly it has been said that the innocent suffer for the guilty.
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It cannot be doubted that at that period British seamen were treated totally differently from what they are now, and just as a black sheep is to be met with in a flock, British Captains were found, men totally deroid of humanity, who thought nothing of meting out for a slight offence punishment at which we would now hold up our hands in horror. Even the officers, in some cases, came in for a share of abuse at the bands of their captain, as witness the case of the Bounty, the captain of which (Bligh) was a man of very violent temper, the constant ebullitions of which finally caused him intense suffering and lost him his ship. The Bounty was on a voyage to the South Sea Islands in quest of young bread-fruit trees for transplantation to the West India Islands, One morning, Capt. Bligh, happening to lose a few cocoa-nuts, had his brother officers mustered and soundly rated them for stealing his fruit,
pack of thieves.' winding up by calling them a This scurry treatment rankled the most in the breast of the 1st Lieutenant of the ship (Lieut. Christian), a man of gentle birth, and well it might in a gentlerian, which his captain was not. This was the spark that set fire to the magazine that was already pent up in the bosom, of Lieut. Christian. On the night of the 28th April, 1798, Lient. Christian overpowered the watch and, heading a party of mutineers, broke into Capt. Bligh's cabin whit he was asleep. Bligh pointed his pistol at the first man to enter. but it missed fire; he was theu most unceremoniously dragged from his cabin, in his shirt sleeves, and tied securely to the mizzen mast, with a guard over him, while to consider what the mutineers assembled to do with their captain. It was finally decided to put him into a boat, which was accordingly lowered alongside. In it he was without further parley dumped and, together with a few of the crew who begged to be allowed to go with him, turued adrift, not however before having some water, wine, and provisions thrown in to them. After an eventful voyage of some thousands of miles, during which Bligh and his men suffered untold hardships, they managed to reach Batavia and those that survived (Capt. Bligh being in the number) finally returned to Eng land. As to the mutineers, they steered a dir- ect course for Tahiti, where they obtained na-
But to return to the Hermione and the terrible tragedy that was enacted on board, in describing which I can do no better than to quote in extenso the graphic words of the historian James as follows:-
On the night of the 22nd of September, 1797, while the 32-gun frigate Hermione (Captain Hugh Pigot), was cruising off the west end of Porto-Rico, a most daring and unexampled mutiny broke out ou board of her. It appears that, on the preceding day, while the crew were reefing the topsails, the captain_called aloud that he would flog the last man off the mizzen. topsail yard. The poor fellows well knowing that he would keep his word (and though the lot would naturally fall on the outermost, and consequently the most active), each resolved at any rate to escape from punishment. Two of them, who from their position could not reach the topmast rigging, made a spring to get over their comrades within them; they missed their hold, fell on the quarter-deck, and were both killed. This being reported to the captain, he is said to have made answer, "Throw the lub bers overboard.”
It appears, also, that all the other men, on coming down, were severely reprimanded, and threatened with punishment. This most tyrannical conduct on the part of Captain Pigot, operating upon a very motley, and, from a succession of similar acts of oppres- sion, ill-disposed ship's company, produced dis- content, which kept increasing until the next evening, when it fatally burst forth. The men, in addition to the loud murmurs they uttered, now began throwing double-headed shot about the deck; and on the first-lieutenant's advanc- ing to inquire into the cause of the disturbance, they wounded him in the arm with a toma- bawk. He retired for a while, and then re-. turned; when the wretches knocked him down with a tomahawk, cut his throat, and threw him overboard. The captain, hearing a noise, ran on deck, but was driven back with repeated wounds; seated in his cabin he was stabbed by his cockawain and three other muti- neers, and, forced out of his cabin windows, was heard to speak as he went astern. In a similar manner did the mutineers proceed with eight other officers, catting and mangling their vio tims in the most cruel and barbarous manner.
The only officers that escaped destruction were the master, Edward Southcott, the gunner, Richard Searle, the carpenter. Richard Price, one midshipman, David O'Brien Casey, and the cook, William Moncrief. Those murdered were the captain, three lieutenants, purser, surgeon, captain's clerk. one midshipman, the boatswain, and the lieutenant of marines.
Having thus rid themselves of every possible opponent, the mutineers carried the ship into La Guayra, a port of the Spanish Main, repre senting to the Spanish Governor that they had turned their officers adrift in the jolly boat. The Governor, soon afterwards, in spite of the remonstrances of Rear Admiral Henry Harvey, the British Commander-in-chief on the Lee- ward Island station, who fully explained the hor
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