Page:The Blight of Insubordination.djvu/87

79 this section, and if any of the foregoing requirements of this section is not complied with in the case of any ship, the owner of the ship shall for each offence be liable to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds.

"(2) Every place so occupied and appropriated shall be kept free from goods and stores of any kind not being the personal property of the crew in use during the voyage, and if any such place is not so kept free the master shall forfeit and pay to each seaman or apprentice lodged in that place the sum of one shilling for each day during which, after complaint has been made to him by any two or more of the seamen as lodged, it is not so kept free."

This, then, is the very least that the shipowner can provide. How it is accomplished may be judged by those who can never see for themselves by the following report on the subject, dated. May, 1900, from the shipping master at Bombay to the Acting-Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium, and Abkâri.

"In my report last year I alluded to this, and was directed to report any case meeting my eye in which the rules of the Board of Trade had been infringed, but I found none. Still, in visits of inspection my attention has occasionally been drawn to small partitioned-off spaces outside the forecastle with terribly sunheated iron bulkheads, and containing perhaps two bunks and room for a chest or so, but nothing else. On inquiry I have learned they were for the boatswain and carpenter, and I have most sincerely pitied the boatswain and carpenter, for the owners seem to have little consideration for them in tropical climates.

"What I cannot understand is that if a table and seats be considered necessary for the ship's officers in the cabin, why are they not so for others and for the forecastle hand?

"The latter, I may say, has always to sit on his chest with his tin dish on his knees, after having helped himself to his portion of buffalo beef served up in another tin utensil, and supplemented by often doubtful biscuit with tea or coffee (such as it is) without milk, or a pannikin of water, as the meal might be.

"If he wishes for 'luxuries,' such as bread and butter, jam or fruit, he can get them from the bum-boatman—the ship won't supply them.

"It seems strange that no effort 1s made to improve the misery (I cannot say comfort) of the forecastle hand; it seems to be nobody's business, but it should be the business of the shipowner; and I feel certain that if the surroundings of the seaman on board the usual 'tramp' or sailing ship were less sordid a different state of affairs would exist between the master of a ship and his men. Ships vary a good deal in respect to both diet and accommodation, but in those where no margin is allowed beyond the Act of Parliament scale the men appear rather to enjoy a visit to the local gaol. Shipmasters have been