Smack Apprentices by W. Clark Russell — Read

"I don't know what country he hailed from, I'm sure; but, thank the Lord, he wasn't an Englishman," said a smacksman, in the most fervent manner, to me the other day, speaking of Osmond Otto Brand, who was executed on the 23rd of May for the murder of an apprentice named William Papper or Pepper. At any other time than this I believe the story of that miscreant's barbarity would have deeply stirred the public mind; but of late days[C] murder has become a common thing, much talked of and freely practised. People's capacity of being horrified gets dulled by iteration of shocking news, and the significance of any one item in a blood-red catalogue loses value as a particular impression. Whatever effect, however, may have been produced by Brand's crime on the lay mind outside the district where the murderer and his victim were known, there can be no doubt of the impression it has made upon smack-owners and smacksman all round the coast. There is scarcely a fisherman who has not the horrible story off by heart, who does not view the atrocious cruelties practised by the foreign smack-master as a foul disgrace to the fishing industries, and who does not indignantly lament that the men who helped Brand to slowly kill the miserable apprentice were not hanged along with their skipper. One result of Brand's crime was to cause some questions to be asked in the House of Commons. There was also some talk about the whole subject of fishing apprentices being considered by Government.

If it is to be dealt with it will be as well, perhaps, first to give the Hull murder time to drop out of memory. To adopt it as a text for legislation would assuredly be to mislead honourable members who vote without looking very deep into the matters on which their opinions are challenged. If the condition of the smack apprentice is an improvable feature of current life, it is not so merely because Brand slowly tortured Pepper to death. We must shelve all thoughts of that murder, and ask questions without the least reference to it. What is the life of a fishing apprentice at sea? What is it ashore? How is he fed and clothed? What is the nature of his relations with the owners' interests? What is the average character of the men with whom he is thrown? These and other questions I will endeavour to answer from inquiries I have made into the inner or hidden part of the lives of a body of lads of whom the public know less than they know of any other kind of seafaring people.