Mr. Plimsoll in a most remarkable and vigorous book,[35] published in 1873, puts the matter of “coffin-ships” forcibly before his readers. He says, “No means are neglected by Parliament to provide for the safety of life ashore; and yet, as I said before, you may build a ship in any way you please, you may use timber utterly unfit, you may use it in quantity utterly inadequate, but no one has any authority to interfere with you.
“You may even buy an old ship 250 tons burden by auction for £50, sold to be broken up, because extremely old and rotten; she had had a narrow escape on her last voyage, and had suffered so severely that she was quite unfit to go to sea again without more being spent in repairs upon her than she would be worth when done. Instead of breaking up this old ship, bought for 4s. per ton (the cost of a new ship being from £10 to £14 per ton), as was expected, you may give her a coat of paint—she is too rotten for caulking—and to the dismay of her late owners, you may prepare to send her to sea. You may be remonstrated with, in the strongest terms, against doing so, even to being told that if you persist, and the men are lost, you deserve to be tried for manslaughter.
“You may engage men in another port, and they, having signed articles without seeing the ship, you may send them to the port where the ship lies in the custody of a mariner. You may then (after re-christening the ship, which ought not to be allowed), if you have managed to insure her heavily, load her until the main deck is within two feet of the water amidships, and send her to sea. Nobody can prevent you. Nay, more, if the men become riotous, you may arrest them without a magistrate’s warrant, and take them to prison, and the magistrates, who have no choice (they have not to make, but only to administer the law), will commit them to prison for twelve weeks with hard labour, or, better still for you, you may send for a policeman on board to overawe the mutineers, and induce them to do their duty! And then, if the ship is lost with all hands, you will gain a large sum of money and you will be asked no questions, as no inquiry will ever be held over those unfortunate men, unless (which has only happened once, I think) some member of the House asks for inquiry.
“The river policeman who in one case threatened a refractory crew with imprisonment, and urged them to do their duty (!) told me afterwards (when they were all drowned) that he and his colleagues at the river-side station had spoken to each other about the ship being dreadfully overloaded as she passed their station on the river, before he went [pg 115]on board to urge duty (!) and that he then, when he saw me, ‘rued badly that he had not locked ’em up without talk, as then they wouldn’t have been drowned.’ ”
Here Mr. Plimsoll indicates another risk for the poor sailor: “There is, I fear, great reason to think that ships are occasionally lost from the very imperfect manner in which some of them are built; in some cases, I think you will see that something worse ought to be said. I do not say the cases are many; still, they exist, and we have done nothing to prevent it. The first time I introduced a bill to prevent overloading, I alluded (mentioning no names) to the case of one ship-owner who, trading to the West Indies for sugar (a good voyage, deep water, and plenty of sea room all the way) had, out of a fleet of twenty-one vessels, lost no less than ten of them in less than three years.
“After I had concluded my speech in moving the second reading, a member accosted me in the lobby and said: ‘Mr. Plimsoll, you were mistaken in that statement of yours.’ ‘What statement?’ I answered. ‘Oh, that when you said a ship-owner had lost ten ships in less than three years from overloading.’ ‘I mentioned no names,’ I said. ‘No, but I know who you meant. He is one of my constituents, and a very respectable man indeed. It is not his fault; it is the fault of the man who built his ships, for one of them was surveyed in London and was found to be put together with devils. He knew nothing about it, I assure you.’ ‘Devils?’ I said. ‘Yes.’ ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ ‘Oh, devils are sham bolts, you know; that is, when they ought to be copper, the head and about an inch of the shaft are copper, and the rest is iron.’
“I have since found there are other and different sham bolts used, where merely a bolthead (without any shaft at all) is driven in, and only as many real bolts used as will keep the timbers in their places. Now these bolts are used to go through the outside planking, the upright timber, not the inner planking (ceiling) of a ship, and through the vertical or drooping part of a piece of iron called a knee, on the upper part of which the deck-beams rest, and to which the deck-beams are also bolted from above. These bolts, therefore, are from thirteen to eighteen inches in length.”
The following examples will speak for themselves. Mr. Plimsoll says:—“On the occasion of one of my visits to a port in the north, I was met by a gentleman who knew what my errand there was likely to be, and he said, ‘Oh, Mr. Plimsoll, you should have been here yesterday: a vessel went down the river so deeply loaded, that everybody who saw her expects to hear of her being lost. She was loaded under the personal directions of her owner, and the captain himself said to me, “Isn’t it shameful to send men with families to sea in a vessel loaded like that?” Poor fellow, it is much if ever he reaches port.’ Half a dozen others confirmed this statement. The captain ‘was greatly depressed in spirits,’ and a friend—not the owner, mark you!—gave him some rockets—‘in case of the worst.’ Two men averred that they would not go if the owner gave them the ship.
“She was sent. The men were some of them threatened, and one at least had a promise of 10s. extra per month if he would go. As she went away, the police-boat left her; the police had been on board to overawe the men with going. As the police-boat left her side, two of the men, deciding that they would rather be taken to prison, [pg 116]hailed the police, and begged to be taken by them. The police said, ‘they could not interfere,’ and the ship sailed. My friend was in great anxiety, and told me that if the wind came on to blow, the ship could not live.
