crew; the time they are to be on board; the amount of wages of each seaman; the scale of provisions; regulations as to conduct, and as to fines for petty acts of misconduct. The agreement is to be read over to the seaman by the superintendent of the office, and each seaman is to sign in the superintendent's presence. A duplicate of the agreement is retained by the superintendent; where the voyage is short an agreement called a running agreement is made to extend over six months, and to include all foreign-going voyages made in the ship to which it relates in that time.

The crews of home-trade ships may be engaged before a superintendent (Section 155), and an agreement made between the owner and the men may include service in several ships provided the nature of the service is specified. Seamen engaged in the colonies to serve on board a ship registered in the United Kingdom, must be engaged before a superintendent; and seamen engaged to serve in any ship belonging to a colony other than the one in which the engagement takes place, must be engaged before the same officer: but colonial ships engaging their crews in the colony in which the ship is registered are not required by the Merchant Shipping Act to engage them at a Mercantile Marine office. Various colonial acts however require this to be done. Seamen engaged in a foreign country other than a British colony must have the engagement sanctioned by a British consular officer.

Alterations, interlineations, or erasures in agreements, are illegal unless duly attested to have been made with the consent of all parties. A copy of the agreement is to be kept accessible to the crew, and seamen discharged before the commencement of the voyage are entitled to compensation. A seaman has power to allot a certain portion of the wages he earns during the voyage to his wife, etc., during his absence. This is done by an allotment note, and all stipulations as to allotment are to be entered in the agree ment, such as the amount of allotment, the times of payment, etc., and the allotment note is to be in a form sanctioned by the Board of Trade. An allotment note can be sued on summarily by the wife, father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, child, grandchild, brother, or sister of a seaman; who can recover unless it is proved to the satisfaction of the Court that the seaman has ceased to be entitled to the wages out of which the allotment is payable. In proceeding on an allotment note, it is sufficient for the claimant to prove that he or she is the person mentioned in the note, and that the note was given by the owner, or the master, or some authorised agent of the ship, and the seaman is deemed to be earning his wages unless it is proved to the Court that he is not (Section 169).

Seamen serving in British foreign-going ships must not only be engaged, but must be discharged before a superintendent, if the discharge takes place in the United Kingdom (Section 170); and each seaman is entitled to an account of his wages from the master before the discharge takes place (Section 171); this account is to be in a form sanctioned by the Board of Trade, and is to shew the wages due and all deductions claimed therefrom on any account whatever. Superintendents are empowered to settle questions arising between the parties if they agree in writing to refer them to him. (On Section 171 we shall have something special to say further on.)

Besides the protection intended to be afforded to the seaman, of the accounts to be rendered to him, and the manner and place of the payment of his wages, he has the further advantages of a special money order system and a special savings' bank system, each of which has been established exclusively for his benefit. These have both been very largely made use of by seamen. Money can be remitted by seamen to their friends and relatives not only from places in the United Kingdom, but from many places abroad, and there is every reason to hope that the system may be further extended abroad. The amount deposited in the seamen's savings' bank during the year 1870, was £33,174 4s. 5d., and the balance of former years £58,309 2s. 4d., and the amount of money orders in 1870 was £312,482 6s. 3d. These figures speak something in favour of the seamen, and indicate something in favour of their families. The money, or a good part of it (£404,000) is money diverted from unclean and improper women, from stews, brothels, beer shops, and crimps, to gladden the homes and relatives of seamen. It is only when we know how great a sum is the small part of the wages of seamen passing into the bank and money order office, that we can realize the magnitude of the sum annually swallowed by the crimp.

A seaman's right to wages and provisions commences either at the time he commences work, or at the time specified in the agreement for commencing work, which ever first happens. No seaman can by any agreement forfeit his lien upon the ship or be deprived of any remedy for the recovery of his wages (Section 182), and wages are no longer dependent on the earning of freight. The old rule that "freight is the mother of wages" has long since ceased. Wages run on in the case of wreck to the time of the wreck, and, in case the seaman is left ashore under a certificate of unfitness to proceed to sea, down to the date of that certificate (Section 185), but are not payable during refusal to work or during imprisonment.

And wages are to be paid (Section 187) in the case of home trade ships within two days after the termination of the agreement, or when the seaman is discharged, and in other cases (except whalers, where special arrangements are required to meet the case of oil money, and blubber and bone money), within three days after the cargo has been delivered, or within five days after the seaman's discharge, which ever first happens. At the time of discharge a seaman is entitled to be paid on account a sum equal to one-fourth of the balance of wages due to him, the penalty on the master or owner for non-compliance is an extra payment as wages of two days' pay for every day's delay, not exceeding ten days in all. The account of wages is by a former section, to be delivered to the seaman twenty-four hours before he is paid off or discharged. Seamen can sue for their wages in a summary manner, but cannot sue for wages abroad unless discharged abroad or in danger of life. The Board of Trade have power in their discretion to refuse to pay the wages of a deceased seaman to any person not being related to the testator by blood or marriage, who claims under a will made elsewhere than on board ship, unless signed and witnessed by a superintendent or minister, a justice of the peace, or a consular or customs officer. It was the practice formerly for improper women and crimps and Jew slopsellers to obtain wills from seamen every voyage, but the above provision has materially checked such proceedings, though it has not entirely abolished them. (Sec. 200.) There are special provisions for payment of just claims by creditors, and for preventing fraudulent claims on the estates of deceased seamen, and the Board of Trade has absolute power of refusal in certain cases. This provision is also aimed at crimps, slopsellers, etc.

As regards discharge abroad, whenever a seaman is discharged abroad it is to be done, if in a colony, before a superintendent or other similar officer, if in a foreign country, before a consul, who is to act in the same way as a superintendent of a Mercantile Marine office does upon a discharge at home. And in every such case, and also in cases of men left behind on the ground of desertion, a certificate of the fact is to be obtained from that officer. Before the certificate is given the master of the ship is to deposit with the officer in money, if he can, in a bill on the owner if he cannot, the wages due to the seaman; and also, except in cases of desertion, or cases where he provides the man with other employment, or otherwise satisfies the officer that no expense will be incurred in respect of the seaman, such a sum of money as may be necessary in order to provide the seaman with a passage home. [Sec. 205.]

The forcing ashore or leaving behind any seaman or apprentice wilfully or wrongfully abroad is a misdemeanour. Distressed seamen found abroad are relieved and sent home at the expense of the British taxpayer, and masters of British ships are compelled to take them. [Secs. 211 and 212.]

By Section 232, any seaman is allowed to go ashore to make complaint to a proper officer or justice of the peace against the master or any of the crew, and the penalty on the master for not affording an opportunity, when the service of the ship admits of it, is £20. And in order to protect seamen from impositions, Sec. 233 provides that sale of and charge upon wages shall be invalid. Under that Section no wages due or accruing to any seaman or apprentice shall be subject to attachment or assessment from any Court, and by Section 234, no debt exceeding five shillings can be recovered from a seaman until the end of his voyage. Sections 235 and 236 impose penalties on boarding house keepers for overcharges, and on any person who takes into his possession, or under his control any monies, documents, or effects of any seaman or apprentice, and does not return the same or pay the value thereof when required by such seaman or apprentice.

There are also special penalties for desertion, for neglecting or refusing to join or to proceed to sea-for absence without leave, unless it is before sailing, for quitting the ship without leave before she is secured, for acts of disobedience, assault, combining to disobey, for wilful damage, etc.-Sec. 243; and masters may apprehend deserters without warrant, and deserters may be sent on board in lieu of being sent to prison-Sec. 246. There is a penalty on seamen for giving a false name for the name of the last ship in which they served.

There are of course many other provisions in the Merchant Shipping Act which bear indirectly on the engagement, discharge, and payment of wages of seamen, but we have referred to the principal provisions on these points. We shall now have to point out how far, and why some of these provisions have failed to accomplish the end for which they were designed, and to indicate the direction in which, in our opinion, improvement is practicable and necessary.

The first and most important consideration is the necessity for bringing about an arrangement with foreign countries as regards the engagement and discharge of seamen. Seamen of any country can be engaged to serve on board British merchant ships, and British seamen can be engaged to serve on board ships belonging to almost every country; so long therefore as we have no arrange

ment whatever with the principal maritime States, regulating by common interest and common action the engagement and discharge of seamen, so long will the crimp always reap a fruitful harvest, and so long will the seaman, the shipowner, and the State suffer. It is hopeless for us at home to endeavour to put down the crimp when we know that the crews of foreign ships coming here can and do find him much employment, and when we find, as we do, that it is often difficult, sometimes even impossible, at some ports abroad to obtain any real assistance whatever from the proper authorities in arresting deserters from merchant ships. The difficulty in the way of a satisfactory understanding on this point is no doubt to be found in the reluctance of British lawyers and British courts of law to subordinate themselves to foreign consular officers in this country, and probably the British lawyers and British courts of law are right. It would no doubt be a monstrous thing for British courts and the British civil force to be required to give effect to sentences passed by foreign consuls in this country on members of the crews of foreign ships, but the same thing (monstrous or not) is done for us in many foreign countries. The absence of any arrangement on the subject of deserters, and the engagement and discharge of seamen was aptly illustrated a few days ago in the case of the United States frigate in the Thames. A great number of the crew deserted, and the police authorities had no power to interfere. The authority of the United States Consul was nil. He had no power to call on the police to arrest a single man, and the police had no power to arrest them if he had called on them to do so.

During the time of the civil war in America, the crews of British ships afforded many men to swell the ranks of the Federal Army and Navy. It suited the interests of certain parties to look with equanimity on desertions from British ships then, and on the lawlessness of the crimps, who sometimes superseded the necessity for desertion by kidnapping whole crews. The British shipowner suffered and chafed but did nothing. The United States may not be so patient, and it is within the verge of possibility that they may see the necessity for effecting some mutual understanding.

The next point for consideration is whether some alteration is not called for in the nature of agreements, and in the terms in which they are expressed. If the terms of the agreement are inelastic or not ample, the seaman often gets a discharge abroad on the ground that the voyage on which the ship is actually employed is not the voyage described in the wording of the agreement. And as a rule, the courts or tribunals acting on the principle that a seaman has a right to know the nature of the employment he enters,