Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/248

 234: FEDERAL REPORTEIl. �said that the men who shipped him persuacled bim to say he was 21, and told him he would get more wages if he would say so. �I think'that in this Captaîn Lewis has told the truth, and I am net ail disposed to think he would have taken the boy if he had said, in the shipping of&ce, 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 hor. 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 ail 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. �Continuons 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 fuUy 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 ail 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 f amiliarity with the duties expeoted of him brought upon him ����