The Federal Reporter. Volume 4: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit and District Courts of the United States. October-December, 1880. Page: 234
xiv, 928 p. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this legislative document.
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FEDERAL BEPORTER.
said that the men who shipped him persuaded him to say he
was 21, and told him he would get more wages if he would
say so.
I think that in this Captain Lewis has told the truth, and I
am not all disposed to think he would have taken the boy if
he had said, in the shipping office, that he was only 16;
but, conceding this to be so, and also that there was nothing
in the boy's appearance that should have suggested inquiry,
by his own admission he had notice of this boy's age two
days after they sailed. Johnson says that at that time he
told the captain how he had run away from home, and that
hewanted towrite to his mother and to return to her. The cap-
tain could not have at once returned him; but the testimony
shows that at least every two weeks one of these three vessels,
which were oystering together, came up to Baltimore.
The captain not only did not return him, but kept him for
five months, requiring him to work, first on one boat and then
on another, at labor of the hardest kind, subject to great
exposure, during all the winter months. He paid no attention
to the request of the boy to be allowed to return home. He
made no inquiry to see if his statements were true, and he
allowed the mother to remain in ignorance with regard to her
son, and a prey to prolonged anxiety.
Continuous service on an oyster vessel in the Chesapeake,
during the winter months, involves labor and exposure which
hardy adults are none too able to endure, and no contract
requiring it should be made except with those who fully
comprehend what they are undertaking. To keep such a
youth as Johnson, unused to exposure and hard labor, for five
months in such service, was to risk his health and his ability
during the rest of his life to earn his living by labor. I throw
out of consideration all Johnson's allegations of constant
beatings and of insufficient food. His testimony in these
matters is not supported by any other witness and is contra-
dicted by several. He had never before been on a vessel, and
I have no doubt that his natural slowness and want of
familiarity with the duties expected of him brought upon him
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Boyle, Peyton. The Federal Reporter. Volume 4: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit and District Courts of the United States. October-December, 1880., legislative document, 1881; Saint Paul, Minnesota. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc36333/m1/248/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.