R. S., 4511. Mar. 3, 1897. out the approval of a commissioner, of the apprentice, and of his parents or his guardian. For any violation of this section, the master shall be liable to a penalty of not more than one hundred dollars. 79. Agreement to ship in foreign trade. The master of every vessel bound from a port in the United States to any foreign port other than vessels engaged in trade between the United States and the British North American possessions, or the West India Islands, or the republic of Mexico, or of any vessel of the burden of seventy-five tons or upward, bound from a port on the Atlantic to a port on the Pacific, or vice versa, shall, before he proceeds on such voyage, make an agreement, in writing or in print, with every seaman whom he carries to sea as one of the crew, in the manner hereinafter mentioned; and every such agreement shall be, as near as may be, in the form given in the table marked A, in the schedule annexed to this Title [R. S., 4501-4613], and shall be dated at the time of the first signature thereof, and shall be signed by the master before any seamen signs the same, and shall contain the following particulars: First. The nature and, as far as practicable, the duration of the intended voyage or engagement, and the port or country at which the voyage is to terminate. Second. The number and description of the crew, specifying their respective employments. Third. The time at which each seaman is to be on board, to begin work. Fourth. The capacity in which each seaman is to serve. Fifth. The amount of wages which each seaman is to receive. Sixth. A scale of the provisions which are to be furnished to each seaman. Seventh. Any regulations as to conduct on board and as to fines, short allowances of provisions, or other law ful punishments for misconduct, which may be sanctioned by Feb. 14, 1903. Congress or authorized by the Secretary of Commerce and Labor not contrary to or not otherwise provided for by law, which the parties agree to adopt. Sec. 10. June 26, 1884. Eighth. Any stipulations in reference to allotment of wages, or other matters not contrary to law. [Repealed so far as relates to allotments in trade between the United Dec. 21, 1898. States, Dominion of Canada, Newfoundland, the West Indies and Mexico, and coasting trade of the United States, except between Atlantic and Pacific ports, by sec. 25 of Act of December 21, 1898.] Sec.25. R. S., 4512. The following rules shall be observed with respect to agreements: First. Every agreement except such as are otherwise specially provided for, shall be signed by each seaman in the presence of a shipping-commissioner. Second. When the crew is first engaged the agreement shall be signed in duplicate, and one part shall be retained by the shipping-commissioner, and the other part shall contain a special place or form for the description and signatures of persons engaged subsequently to the first departure of the ship, and shall be delivered to the master. County of Third. Every agreement entered into before a shippingcommissioner shall be acknowledged and certified under the hand and official seal of such commissioner. The certificate of acknowledgment shall be indorsed on or annexed to the agreement; and shall be in the following form: "State of "On this day of personally appeared before me, a shipping-commissioner in and for the said county, A. B., Ĉ. D., and E. F., severally known to me to be the same persons who executed the foregoing instrument, who each for himself acknowledged to me that he had read or had heard read the same; that he was by me made acquainted with the conditions thereof, and understood the same; and that, while sober and not in a state of intoxication, he signed it freely and voluntarily, for the uses and purposes therein mentioned." Feb. 18, 1895. Section 4511 shall not apply to masters of vessels where R. S., 4513. the seamen are by custom or agreement entitled to participate in the profits or result of a cruise or voyage, nor to masters of coastwise nor to masters of lake-going vessels that touch at foreign ports; but seamen may, by agreement, serve on board such vessels a definite time, or, on the return of any vessel to a port in the United States, may reship and sail in the same vessel on another voyage, June 19, 1886. without the payment of additional fees to the shippingcommissioner. [NOTE.-Section 4511, however, does apply in part to masters of coastwise vessels whose crews are shipped under provisions of the act of February 18, 1895.] The master shall, at the commencement of every voy- R. S., 4519. age or engagement, cause a legible copy of the agreement, omitting signatures, to be placed or posted up in such part of the vessel as to be accessible to the crew; and on default shall be liable to a penalty of not more than one hundred dollars. 80. Period of engagement. A master of a vessel in the foreign trade may engage a seaman at any port in the United States, in the manner provided by law, to serve on a voyage to any port, or for the round trip from and to the port of departure, or for a definite time, whatever the destination. The master of a vessel making regular and stated trips between the United States and a foreign country may engage a seaman for one or more round trips, or for a definite time, or on the June 26, 1884. Sec. 19. R. S., 4514. R. S., 4515. R. S., 4516. R. S., 4517. return of said vessel to the United States may reship such seaman for another voyage in the same vessel, in the manner provided by law, without the payment of additional fees to any officer for such reshipment or re-engagement. 81. Penalty for shipment without agreement. If any person shall be carried to sea, as one of the crew on board of any vessel making a voyage as herein before specified, without entering into an agreement with the master of such vessel, in the form and manner, and at the place and times in such cases required, the vessel shall be held liable for each such offense to a penalty of not more than two hundred dollars. But the vessel shall not be held liable for any person carried to sea, who shall have secretly stowed away himself without the knowledge of the master, mate, or of any of the officers of the vessel, or who shall have falsely personated himself to the master, mate, or officers of the vessel, for the purpose of being carried to sea. If any master, mate, or other officer of a vessel knowingly receives, or accepts, to be entered on board of any merchant-vessel, any seaman who has been engaged or supplied contrary to the provisions of this Title [R. S., 4501-4613], the vessel on board of which such seaman shall be found shall, for every such seaman, be liable to a penalty of not more than two hundred dollars. 82. Undermanning. In case of desertion or casualty resulting in the loss of one or more seamen, the master must ship, if obtainable, a number equal to the number of those whose services he has been deprived of by desertion or casualty, who must be of the same grade or rating and equally expert with those whose place or position they refill, and report the same to the United States consul at the first port at which he shall arrive, without incurring the penalty prescribed by the two preceding sections. [This section shall not apply to fishing or whaling vessels or yachts, Dec. 21, 1898, sec. 26.] 83. Shipment in foreign ports before consuls. Every master of a merchant-vessel who engages any seaman at a place out of the United States, in which there is a consular officer or commercial agent, shall, before carrying such seaman to sea, procure the sanction of such officer, and shall engage seamen in his presence; and the rules governing the engagement of seamen before a shipping-commissioner in the United States, shall apply to such engagements made before a consular officer or commercial agent; and upon every such engagement the consular officer or commercial agent shall indorse upon the agreement his sanction thereof, and an attestation to the effect that the same has been signed in his presence, and otherwise duly made. Every master who engages any seaman in any place in R. S., 4518. which there is a consular officer or commercial agent, otherwise than as required by the preceding section, shall incur a penalty of not more than one hundred dollars, for which penalty the vessel shall be held liable. Every master of a vessel in the foreign trade may engage any seaman at any port out of the United States, in the manner provided by law, to serve for one or more round trips from and to the port of departure, or for a definite time, whatever the destination; and the master of a vessel clearing from a port of the United States with one or more seamen engaged in a foreign port as herein provided shall not be required to reship in a port of the United States the seamen so engaged. 84. Crew list. June 26, 1884. R. S., 4573. Before a clearance is granted to any vessel bound on a foreign voyage or engaged in the whale-fishery, the master thereof shall deliver to the collector of the customs a list containing the names, places of birth and residence, and description of the persons who compose his ship's company; to which list the oath of the captain shall be annexed, that the list contains the names of his crew, together with the places of their birth and residence, as far as he can ascertain them; and the collector shall June 19, 1886. deliver him a certified copy thereof. In all cases of private vessels of the United States sail- R. S., 4574. ing from a port in the United States to a foreign port, the list of the crew shall be examined by the collector for the district from which the vessel shall clear, and, if approved of by him, shall be certified accordingly. No person shall be admitted or employed on board of any such vessel unless his name shall have been entered in the list of the crew, approved and certified by the collector for the district from which the vessel shall clear. The collector, before he delivers the list of the crew, approved and certified, to the master or proper officer of the vessel to which the same belongs, shall cause the same to be recorded in a book by him for that purpose to be provided, and the record shall be open for the inspection of all persons, and a certified copy thereof shall be admitted in evidence in any court in which any question may arise. under any of the provisions of this Title [R. S., 45014613]. 85. Failure to produce crew. The master of every vessel bound on a foreign voyage or engaged in the whale fishery shall exhibit the certified copy of the list of the crew to the first boarding officer at the first port in the United States at which he shall arrive on his return, and also produce the persons named therein to the boarding officer, whose duty it shall be to examine the men with such list and to report the same to the col 9108-08- -5 R. S., 4576. R. S., 4575. lector; and it shall be the duty of the collector at the port of arrival, where the same is different from the port from which the vessel originally sailed, to transmit a copy of the list so reported to him to the collector of the port from which such vessel originally sailed. For each failure to produce any person on the certified copy of the list of the crew the master and owner shall be severally liable to a penalty of four hundred dollars, to be sued for, prosecuted, and disposed of in such manner as penalties and forfeitures which may be incurred for offenses against the laws relating to the collection of duties; but such penalties shall not be incurred on account of the master not producing to the first boarding officer any of the persons contained in the list who may have been discharged in a foreign country with the consent of the consul, vice consul, commercial agent, or vice-commercial agent there residing, certified in writing, under his hand and official seal, to be produced to the collector with the other persons composing the crew, nor on account of any such person dying or absconding or being forcibly impressed into other service of which satisfactory proof shall also be exhibited to the collector. 86. Papers relating to crew. The following rules shall be observed with reference to vessels bound on any foreign voyage: First. The duplicate list of the ship's company, required to be made out by the master and delivered to the collector of the customs, under section forty-five hundred and seventy-three, shall be a fair copy in one uniform handwriting, without erasure or interlineation. Second. It shall be the duty of the owners of every such vessel to obtain from the collector of the customs of the district from which the clearance is made, a true and certified copy of the shipping-articles, containing the names of the crew, which shall be written in a uniform hand, without erasures or interlineations. Third. These documents, which shall be deemed to contain all the conditions of contract with the crew as to their service, pay, voyage, and all other things, shall be produced by the master, and laid before any consul, or other commercial agent of the United States, whenever he may deem their contents necessary to enable him to discharge the duties imposed upon him by law toward any mariner applying to him for his aid or assistance. Fourth. All interlineations, erasures, or writing in a hand different from that in which such duplicates were originally made, shall be deemed fraudulent alterations, working no change in such papers, unless satisfactorily explained in a manner consistent with innocent purposes and the provisions of law which guard the rights of mariners. |