Shipping officers.
The general duties of a shipping-commissioner shall be:
First. To afford facilities for engaging seamen by keeping a register of their names and characters.
Second. To superintend their engagement and discharge, in manner prescribed by law.
Third. To provide means for securing the presence on board at the proper times of men who are so engaged.
Fourth. To facilitate the making of apprenticeships to the sea service.
Fifth. To perform such other duties relating to merchant seamen or merchant ships as are now or may hereafter be required by law.
In any port in which no shipping-commissioner shall have been appointed, the whole or any part of the business of a shipping-commissioner shall be conducted by the collector or deputy collector of customs of such port; and in respect of such business such custom-house shall be deemed a shipping-office, and the collector or deputy collector of customs to whom such business shall be committed, shall, for all purposes, be deemed a shipping-commissioner within the meaning of this Title [R. S., 4501-4613]. (R. S., 4503.)
Every shipping-commissioner, and every clerk or employé in any shipping-office, who demands or receives any remuneration whatever, either directly or indirectly, for hiring or supplying any seaman for any merchant-vessels, excepting the lawful fees payable under this Title [R. S., 4501-4613], shall, for every such offense, be liable to a penalty of not more than two hundred dollars. [Fees payable by individuals abolished June 19, 1886.] (R. S., 4595; Mar. 4, 1911; June 19, 1886; R. S., 4508.)