'Tae British vessel Alhambra now lying in this harbour cannot well have presented to the eyes or minds of its oconbe pants, during its voyage hither from Puget Sound, the idea of a floating paradise. 'Life is not all beer and skittles' is a saying attributed to a Jack moralizing over the ills and untoward events of this life; and we can fancy, after listening to the revelations made during the recent sittings of the Police Court, that some such grave sentiment has been more than once uttered, with the accompanimentof many a solemn shake of the head, in the forecastle of that vessel; and that few cared, on the occasions of those utterances, to assert that they or their companions were absolutely and entirely happy. Mercantile Jack has, or thinks he has, a right to grumble, and as arulo he does grumble to his heart's content against his natural enemies, his superior officers. No doubt he is frequently wrong in assuming that he has been wronged; and very frequently, after he has aired his wrongs in a Police Court, has i to return to his ship unsatisfied, fully impressed with the belief that Consuls and Magistrates never give justice in cases like his own, and probably, too, minus some dollars given away-for the trouble he has given in prosecuting those whom he regards as his persecutors. At the close of Friday's proceedings in the Police Court, the grins of triumph plainly visible on the faces of the seamen of the Alhambra—who, with their sympathizing bre-throu from the Sailor's Home and elsewhere, formed quite a crowd in Court—revealed to the world that they were overjoyed at the Magistrate's' decision. And the announcement that the seamen's arch-enemy in the Alhambra, the chief officer, would have to pass the next 10 weeks of his life in jail no doubt drove from may a listener's mind former serious doubts as to Justices' justice.
The crew of the Alhambra appears to have been composed of representatives of nearly every nation under ths sun, Whether the navigation of the vessel would be carried on the better in consequence thereof, seems doubtful. At any rate, the chief officer had a poor opinion of the mixed crew's general ability, and stated in Court that affairs went on so badly that he bad to resort to rough measures, to get the ship to the end of her voyage. The reader of the Police Court proceedings reported in Saturday's paper will see the sort, of measures he adopted. If we are to believe the seamen's statements, these harsh acts were not required; according to them, he was simply a cruel tyrant and a bully. Two or three days ago he was fined $15 for hitting a man twice on the head with a belaying piv, for which blows no provocation had been given. Yesterday, such actions as kicking a seaman's tooth out, swinging himself up to the bridge and while in that position driving his foot into another's mouth, and on a separate occasion splitting a man's face open with his fist, were fully proved against him. He did not deny the assaults, but denied their severity, and alleged in defence that something of the sort was necessary. His roughness, however, we are glad to say, met with a just punishment; however grievous the imprisonment with hard Inbour of a chief officer may appear, the Police Magistrate did well in meting out such justice as he did,—and so, a8 we hinted above, thought every seaman who heard his Worship give the sentence. A tyrant's reign, whether on shore or on board ship, should be short; and so great was the fear inspired by the tyranny of the prisoner in this case, that he actually, after the arrival of the vessel here, managed to persuade those whom he had ill-treated-during the voyage to sign a paper that they would institute no proceedings against bim, We hope he will remember the lesson conveyed in the well-deserved sentence passed by Mr. Mowat.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.