FORECASTLE AND CABIN 77 



manner, was easily confused by opposing counsel, and conse- 

 quently failed to present his case in a manner which satisfied 

 the technical rules of evidence. 



The seaman who was a party to a lawsuit also suffered from 

 two widely-held tenets of public opinion. One was the care- 

 less and unthinking belief that sailors as a class were social 

 outcasts and moral pariahs who were well beyond the bounds 

 of common decency and ordinary consideration. The other 

 was the widespread feeling that a too-strict enforcement of 

 the laws designed to protect seamen would result in a serious 

 impairment of discipline, dangerous not only to lives, but also 

 to vessels and cargoes. It was held to be the function of the 

 law to uphold and to strengthen the officers' authority, and 

 not to weaken it by inquiring too closely into the nature of 

 the disciplinary measures which might be deemed advisable. 

 Reported instances of cruelty and of brutality were either 

 discounted as gross exaggerations or were defended as being 

 unavoidable in dealing with such degenerate and desperate 

 crews. Making a voyage was vaguely regarded as a sort of 

 continuous battle of muscle and of wits between forecastle 

 and cabin, in which the forces of law, order, and respectability 

 were needed on the side of the officers, while the foremast 

 hands might safely be allowed to shift for themselves. 



The resulting miscarriage of justice was admirably exem- 

 plified in the case of Marion vs. Moody, which was tried in 

 the Court of Common Pleas at Boston in June, 1854. A 

 seaman brought an action against the master of his vessel for 

 a flogging which was the culmination of a chain of circum- 

 stances originating in the refusal of the entire crew to obey an 

 order. There was no doubt concerning the commission of the 

 offense j and for once the wording of the law was clear and 

 explicit. Only four years before, on September 28, 1850, 

 a statute had been passed which declared sweepingly, without 

 qualification or allowance for extenuating circumstances, that 

 "Flogging on board vessels of commerce is hereby abolished." 

 And yet the judge, after making the obvious and irrelevant 

 ruling that while the act did abolish flogging, it did not pro- 

 hibit the use of force in any form as a means of coercion, 

 instructed the jury that there were two possible findings. If 



