Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/356

 UNITHD STATES V. TBE THOMAS W. EATBIT. Z4t9 �of voyages to be performed, I înfer from the dates, and from the faet that two separate offences are charged, that one of these short Toyages had been performed, and that the other was about to begin ; but the libel does not say so, ex- cepting argumentatively, where it says that he negleeted to do certain tbings before proceeding to sea. The omission is intentional, the government insisting that the offence la committed if a seaman is received before the oontract is signed. �Upon a review of the opinion expressed în The Grace Lo- throp, 1 Holmes, 342, I am unable to see anything to correct in what I then said, and I would refer to the report of that case for my views upon section 4515, then a part of statut© 1872, § 14, (17 St. 265.) We have no law requiring the mas- ter to make his contract with the seamen before receiving them on board his vessel; in both sorts of voyage, foreign and domestic, the command is to make the contract befora proceeding on the voyage. Eev, St. §§ 4511,- 4520. The section upon which this information proceeds is copied liter- ally, and somewhat thoughtlessly, from the English merchant shipping act, 17 and 18 Vict. c. 104, §§ 146 and 147. By that law, merchant seamen are to be "engaged and supplied" by licensed brokers, and a penalty is imposed upon any one, not such broker, who engages or supplies such seamen, and upon any one who knowingly reçoives on board a merchant vessel seamen so illegally engaged or supplied. Our law has no corresponding provision for licensing brokers or for sup- plying ships with seamen, and the only possible meaning of the English law is impossible with us. No doubt any hiring of a seaman may be called engaging him, and he is engaged when he is contracted with. The word has that meaning in some parts of our shipping acts, and in some parts of the merchant shipping act. It cannot have it in section 4515, because, as we have seen, the statutes provide that the writ- ten contract, or "engagement," in that broad sermo, is to be made at any time before the vessel proceeds to sea ; ibere- fore, no oral engagement can be illegal until the last moment ����