The tiny
boy said:
"Oh! Jim, Jim, what's come to you?" but James never uttered a rational
word more. He was sent to his mother's house at Deptford, and he went to
bed with four other children. In the early morning the youngsters
noticed that Jim seemed rather stiff, and he had exceedingly good
reasons, for he was stone-dead, and doubled up. The coroner's jury
thought that death resulted from a stoppage of the intestines. That was
very funny indeed, for Jim's shipmates observed that as he was bruised
and rope's-ended more and more he lost all power of retaining his food,
and everything he swallowed passed from him undigested. Jim succumbed to
the wholesome, manly, hardening, maritime discipline of the good old
times, and no one was hanged for murdering him.
The mind of the kindly, shoregoing man cannot rightly conceive the
monstrosities of cruelty which were perpetrated. Fancy a boy bending
over a line and baiting hooks for dear life while the blood from a
fearful scalp wound drained his veins till he fainted.
Pages:
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170