Volunteers may be trained and exercised for twenty-eight days in each year, either or shore or on board ship, and may be required to join any ship the Admiralty think fit. The whole or part of the force may be called into actual service by proclamation or notice to parliament, if sitting. Volunteers liable to serve three years in the navy, same as the crews of the vessels to which they are appointed, or the three years' service may be extended by proclamation two years, entitling to extra pay of twopence per day; or they may be required to serve at intervals, so as to complete actual service of five years, with extra pay. When called out, volunteers to be victualled in the same manner as seamen of the fleet. Volunteers exempt from the militia and parish offices, and under certain regulations eligible for Greenwich Hospital. Provisions in force relating to billeting of marines to extend to volunteers. Admiralty to make regulations as to sums to be paid to volunteers for entering or re-entering under the act. Admiralty may grant pensions, but pensioners, in case of emergency, to join the navy. Pensioners subject to the laws and customs which govern the fleet. Regulations to be made as to form of entering, clothing, and accoutrements. Penalty on re-enlisting, £20, s. 16. Penalties on volunteer enlisting into any other force, or vice versa. Penalty on selling or buying clothes, arms, or accoutrements, ss. 18, 19. Penalty of £20 for not attending training and exercise. Not attending when called into actual service may be punished as desertion from the navy. Penalty on inducing volunteers to absent themselves, or harbouring them.

X. NAVAL WILLS ACT, AND GREENWICH HOSPITAL..

After commencement of 28 & 29 V. c. 72 (Jan. 1, 1866), wills of seamen or marines made any time previously to their entering into service, of wages, prize, bounty, or other allowance payable by the Admiralty, or in its charge, invalid. Will invalid if combined with power of attorney. For a valid will of money or effects in charge of Admiralty it must be in writing, executed with the forms prescribed by the Wills Act. If will be made on board ship it must be attested by an officer, or if made elsewhere it must be so attested, or by a justice, incumbent, curate, or minister of worship of the place where the will is executed. Will so made entitled to probate, and person taking it out entitled to adminster wages, money, or effects of the testator. S. 6 provides for wills made by seamen if prisoners of war, or made conformable to the act if admitted by the Admiralty.

The 28 & 29 V. c. 111, regulates the disposal of money and effects under the control of the Admiralty belonging to deceased officers, seamen, and marines of the royal navy.

Another act of 1865 (28 & 29 V. c. 89), provides for the better government of Greenwich Hospital, and the more benefi

cial application of its revenues. Power given by order in council to order new pensions to officers and men and seaman of the merchant service entitled to the benefits of the hospital, so long only as they are not on the establishment or inmates of the hospital, but in addition to any half pay, pension or allowance. Additional pensions, to those who may cease to be inmates. Assignment of pensions or allowance void, s. 8. Offices of commissioners and governors of the hospital abolished on and after Sept. 30, 1865, but entitled to retain their titles with pensions and allowances. Government of the hospital and its schools vested exclusively in the Admiralty, with power to regulate the admission of inmates. Landed property of the hospital vested in the Admiralty, with authority to accept devises, notwithstanding the statute restraining alienation in mortmain or dispositions for charitable uses, s. 43. The remaining sections refer to sale of advowsons, marking of stores, and the auditing of accounts. (See further 32 & 33 V. c. 44.)

XI. CONTAGIOUS DISEASE AT NAVAL AND MILITARY STATIONS. The 27 & 28 V. c. 85, makes provision for the prevention of an infectious disease in certain places, namely, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Woolwich, Chatham, Sheerness, Aldershot, Colchester, Shorncliff, the Curragh, Cork, and Queenstown. Superior medical officer to be appointed inspector of hospitals, and such hospitals to be reported upon and certified. On information before a justice by a superintendent or inspector of police, or constabulary, or by any medical practitioner duly registered, the justice may issue a specified notice to be served by a constable on the woman named in the information at her last or usual place of abode. The woman may herself appear, or some person on her behalf, and on oath made confirmatory of the information he may order medical examination at a certified hospital. On failure of an appearance a warrant may issue for the woman's apprehension and conveyance to a certified hospital. Penalty of imprisonment for one or two months on refusal to be examined, or to conform to rules, or quitting the hospital undischarged. A penalty on the keeper or assistant of any house or place, permitting a prostitute having contagious disease to resort there for prostitution. By s. 22, the act not to come in force till suitable hospitals have been certified in the stations named, or within fifty miles of the same. (See also 32 & 83 V. c. 96.)

XII. DISCIPLINE AND WAGES OF THE MERCANTILE MARINE. The Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, the 17 & 18 V. c. 104, amends and consolidates the entire statute law relative to merchant shipping, divided into eleven parts, comprising in the whole 548 clauses. The first part relates to the Board of Trade and its general functions. Part 2 to British ships, their ownership, measurement,

DISCIPLINE AND WAGES OF THE MERCANTILE MARINE. 335

and registry; and part 3, to masters and seamen; part 4, to safety and prevention of accidents; part 5, to pilotage; part 6, to lighthouses: part 7, to mercantile marine fund; part 8, to wrecks, casualties, and salvage; part 9, to the liabilities of ship-owners; part 10, to legal procedure; and part 11, to miscellaneous matters. It is only the third part, relative to masters and seamen, which it will be necessary to include in the present section.

Any master of or any seamen or apprentice belonging to any British ship, who, by wilful breach of duty, or by neglect of duty, or by reason of drunkenness, does any act tending to the immediate loss, destruction, or serious damage of such ship, or tending immediately to endanger the life or limb of any person belonging to or on board of such ship, or who, by wilful breach of duty, or by neglect of duty, or by reason of drunkenness, refuses or omits to do any lawful act proper and requisite to be done by him for preserving such ship from immediate loss, destruction, or serious damage, ar for preserving any person belonging to or on board of such ship from immediate danger to life or limb, shall for every such offence be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, s. 239.

The Board of Trade may grant to such persons as it thinks fit licenses to engage or supply seamen or apprentices for merchant ships in the United Kingdom, to continue for such periods, to be upon such terms, and to be revocable upon such conditions, as such board thinks proper. Penalty for acting without a license, unless it be the owner, master, or mate, not exceeding £20, s. 146.

With respect to the legal rights of seamen, it is provided that a seaman's right to wages and provisions shall be taken to commence either at the time at which he commences work, or at the time specified in the agreement for his commencement of work or presence on board, whichever first happens.

No seaman shall by any agreement forfeit his lien upon the ship, or be deprived of any remedy for the recovery of his wages to which he would otherwise have been entitled; and every stipulation in any agreement inconsistent with any provision of this act, and every stipulation by which any seaman consents to abandon his right to wages in the case of the loss of the ship, or to abandon any rate which he may have or obtain in the nature of salvage, shall be wholly inoperative.

No right of wages shall be dependent on the earning of freight; and every seaman and apprentice who would be entitled to demand and recover any wages if the ship in which he has served had earned freight, shall, subject to all other rules of law and conditions applicable to the case, be entitled to claim and recover the same, notwithstanding that freight has not been earned; but in all cases of wreck, or loss of the ship, proof that he has not exerted himself to the utmost to save the ship, cargo, and stores, shall bar his claim.

In cases where the service of any seaman terminates before the

period contemplated in the agreement by reason of the wreck or loss of the ship, and also in cases where such service terminates by reason of his being left on shore at any place abroad under a certificate of his unfitness or inability to proceed on the voyage, such seaman shall be entitled to wages for the time of service prior to such termination.

No seaman or apprentice shall be entitled to wages for any period during which he unlawfully refuses or neglects to work when required, whether before or after the time fixed by the agreement for his beginning work, nor, unless the court hearing the case otherwise directs, for any period during which he is lawfully imprisoned for any offence committed by him.

The master or owner of every ship shall pay to every seaman his wages within the respective periods following: that is to say. in the case of a home-trade ship within two days after the termination of the agreement, or at the time when such seaman is discharged, whichever first happens; and in the case of all other ships (except ships employed in the southern whale fishery or on other voyages for which seamen by the terms of their agreement are wholly compensated by shares in the profits of the adventure) within three days after the cargo has been delivered, or within five days after the seaman's discharge, whichever first happens ; and in all cases the seaman shall at the time of his discharge be entitled to be paid on account a sum equal to one-fourth part of the balance due to him; and every master or owner who neglects or refuses to make payment in manner aforesaid, without sufficient cause, shall pay to the seaman a sum not exceeding the amount of two days' pay for each of the days, not exceeding ten days, during which payment is delayed beyond the respective periods aforesaid, and such sum shall be recoverable as wages.

Any seaman or apprentice, or any person duly authorized on his behalf, may sue in a summary manner before any two justices of the peace acting in or near to the place at which the service has terminated, or at which the seaman or apprentice has been discharged, or at which any person upon whom the claim is made is or resides, or in Scotland either before any such justices or before the sheriff of the county within which any such place is situated, for any amount of wages due to such seaman or apprentice, not exceeding fifty pounds over and above the costs of any proceeding for the recovery thereof, so soon as the same becomes payable; and every order made by such justices or sheriff in the matter shall be final, ss. 181-187.

Whenever, during the absence of any seaman on a voyage, his wife, children, and step-children, or any of them, become or becomes chargeable to any union or parish in the United Kingdom, such union or parish shall be entitled to be reimbursed, out of the wages of such seaman earned during such voyage, any sums properly expended during his absence in the maintenance of his said

relations or any of them, so that such sums do not exceed a specified proportion of his wages, s. 192.

Any seaman may leave his ship for the purpose of forthwith entering into the naval service of her Majesty, and such leaving his ship shall not be deemed a desertion therefrom, and shall not render him liable to any punishment or forfeiture whatever; and all stipulations introduced into any agreement whereby any seaman is declared to incur any forfeiture or be exposed to any loss in case he enters into her Majesty's naval service shall be void, and every master or owner who causes any such stipulation to be so introduced shall incur a penalty not exceeding £20, s. 214.

Several subsequent acts have been passed to amend the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, and a fresh consolidation of the law on this subject is in contemplation.

By 26 & 27 V. c. 69, her Majesty may accept the offers of persons who are or have been masters or mates or engineers in the merchant service to serve as officers in the navy, subject to such rules as the Admiralty may frame. If called out for training or actual service to receive pay, and entitled to allowances if disabled, or if killed their widows to receive pensions.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Protestant Dissenters and Roman Catholics.

FEW traces remain in the statute book of the disqualifying pena code, which, to a recent period, interdicted to a large portion of the community not only the enjoyment of their civil immunities, but the free disposal of their persons and property. No class of religionists is now exclusively subject to any test or disability on account of dissent from the doctrine or discipline of the established church; and the honours and advantages of the social state are open to every candidate, whatever modification of Christian belief he may profess. In the acts about to be noticed, it will be remarked that the few offices to which Roman Catholics continue ineligible, and the formal requirements to which they continue subjected, are chiefly those connected with the assumption of the title or denomination of the established hierarchy, or to the disposal of academical, collegiate, or ecclesiastical patronage, the functions of which could not be properly discharged by those not members of the national church.

1. QUALIFICATION FOR OFFICES ABOLITION.

The Corporation and Test Acts operated to exclude Protestant Dissenters from offices in corporations, and from civil and military employments. By the former, no person could be legally elected