If any seamen, while on board any vessel, shall state to the master that they desire to make complaint, in accordance with the two preceding sections, in regard to the provisions or the water, to a competent officer, against the master, the master shall, if the vessel is then at a place where there is any such officer, so soon as the service of the vessel will permit, and if the vessel is not then at such a place, so soon after her first arrival at such place as the service of the vessel will permit, allow such seamen, or any of them, to go ashore, or shall send them ashore, in proper custody, so that they may be enabled to make such complaint; and shall, in default, be liable to a penalty of not more than one hundred dollars. (R. S., 4567.)
If, during a voyage, the allowance of any of the provisions which any seaman is entitled to under section forty-six hundred and twelve of the Revised Statutes is reduced except for any time during which such seamen willfully and without sufficient cause refuses or neglects to perform his duty, or is lawfully under confinement for misconduct either on board or on shore; or if it shall be shown that any of such provisions are, or have been during the voyage, bad in quality or unfit for use, the seaman shall receive, by way of compensation for such reduction or bad quality, according to the time of its continuance, the following sums, to be paid to him in addition to and to be recoverable as wages:
First. If his allowance is reduced by any quantity not exceeding one-third of the quantity specified by law, a sum not exceeding fifty cents a day.
Second. If his allowance is reduced by more than one-third of such quantity, a sum not exceeding one dollar a day.
Third. In respect to bad quality, a sum not exceeding one dollar a day.
But if it is shown to the satisfaction of the court before which the case is tried that any provisions, the allowance of which has been reduced, could not be procured or supplied in sufficient quantities, or were unavoidably injured or lost, or if by reason of its innate qualities any article becomes unfit for use and that proper and equivalent substitutes were supplied in lieu thereof, the court shall take such circumstances into consideration and shall modify or refuse compensation, as the justice of the case may require. [This section shall not apply to fishing or whaling vessels or yachts—Dec. 21, 1898, sec. 26.] (R. S., 4568. Dec. 21, 1898; sec. 14.)
Weights and measures.
Every master shall keep on board proper weights and measures for the purpose of determining the quantities of the several provisions and articles served out, and shall allow the same to be used at the time of serving out such provisions and articles, in the presence of a witness, whenever any dispute arises about such quantities, and in default shall, for every offense, be liable to a penalty of not more than fifty dollars. (R. S., 4571.)
Medicines and anti-scorbutics.
Every vessel belonging to a citizen of the United States, bound from a port in the United States to any foreign port, or being of the burden of seventy-five tons or upward, and bound from a port on the Atlantic to a port on the Pacific, or vice versa, shall be provided with a chest of medicines; and every sailing-vessel bound on a voyage across the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, or around Cape Horn, or the Cape of Good Hope, or engaged in the whale or other fisheries, or in sealing, shall also be provided with, and cause to be kept, a sufficient quantity of lime or lemon juice, and also sugar and vinegar or other anti-scorbutics, to be served out to every seaman as follows: The master of every such vessel shall serve the lime or lemon juice, and sugar and vinegar, to the crew, within ten days after salt provisions mainly have been served out to the crew, and so long afterward as such consumption of salt provisions continues; the lime or lemon juice and sugar daily at the rate of half an ounce each per day; and the vinegar weekly at the rate of half a pint per week for each member of the crew. (R. S., 4569.)