of Trade, consisting of two sea-captains, an
assistant-secretary, and a proper establishment
of clerks. A local marine board may
be established at any outport that employs in
foreign trade thirty thousand registered tons
of shipping, and at sixteen such ports these
boards have been established. In each case
they are composed of two members belonging
to the municipality, four persons resident on
the spot who are nominated by the Board of
Trade, and six who are named by local
owners, the possession of at least two hundred
and fifty registered tons of foreign-going ship
being requisite to qualify each owner for his
vote. If any local board fails in its duty, the
Board of Trade may either cause it to be
superseded or assume its functions. The local
boards, which are required to be in constant
correspondence with the registrar of
merchant seamen, must provide shipping offices
and shipping masters for their several ports,
and also medical inspectors.

The registrar of merchant, seamen, whose
office, subordinate to the Board of Trade, is in
Thames Street, records all voyages of ships,
and keeps a register of seamen and apprentices,
in which he enters the characters given
them by their masters, and other information.
The shipping offices in the various ports keep
and transmit to head-quarters similar
records. Masters before clearing out must
leave lists of their crews at the custom-house
of their ports, to be transmitted to the
registrar. The whereabouts of every seaman
and his business history is thus on record.
Masters of vessels wanting crews have only
to apply to the shipping masters at the
shipping offices, to which sailors in want of
ships also resort, at which alone contracts
can be made, crews discharged, and accounts
between master and man settled. Balances of
wages due to deceased seamen are also
ascertained and paid into the hands of the
shipping masters for the benefit of their next
of kin, these balances having been formerly
nearly all lost by the families of the lost men.
Even now there is a three years accumulation
of such balances that have remained
unclaimed, to the extent of no less than ten
thousand pounds.

The registrar of seamen also keeps account
of all contracts of apprenticeship. The old
navigation laws compelled every ship to take
a certain number of apprentices, and the
withdrawal of compulsion very much reduced
the number of youths entered to the merchant
service. With a view to the encouragement
in boys of a seagoing taste, the Board of
Trade, proposes to establish nautical classes
in all the national schools of seaport towns.
Schools for adults, we may add, have been
attached to the sailors' homes of the
metropolis. The sailors' homes, established now in
all large ports, provide good board and lodging
to the seamen at a reasonable rate—about
fourteen shillings a-week—and are meant to
save him from the hands of thieves and from the
haunts of vice. Like ships, they are, however,
monasteries; and while they do much good,
must to a certain extent fail of their intentions.
Upon this, as upon many other
points in the sketch we are here giving,
comments will occur to many minds. It is
our purpose, however, in giving outlines of
the business of government departments, to
state only what arrangements are existing.
The local charges that arise out of machinery
connected with the merchant service is a
little more than paid for by a tax upon the
seamen's earnings.

Among other duties of the Board of Trade
in its marine department these may be
specified. It obtains shipping returns from
consuls at foreign ports, or other crown
officers able to furnish them. It may
demand of any shipmaster his logbook, and
cause his papers to be inspected, or his crew
mustered, should such a proceeding appear
necessary. It appoints inspectors to report
on accidents at sea, and gives them extensive
powers for the purpose of enquiry. It
superintends the new system of examination to
test the capacity of masters and mates of
vessels, and furnish them with classed certificates
according to their merit. Examiners
are appointed by the local boards, and the
Board of Trade issues certificates (which in
case of misconduct it may suspend or cancel)
in accordance with the examiners' reports.

Over steam-vessels carrying passengers the
Board of Trade exercises much control. It
appoints for their examination a shipwright
and an engineer, and compels owners under
heavy penalties to submit their steam vessels
to such surveillance twice a year—namely, in
April and October. Sea or river certificates,
for which a fee is paid, are allowed only on the
reports of the surveyors. Lists of the qualified,
steamers are hung up in the custom-house of
each port, and if a vessel plys without a
license, it is liable to heavy penalties.

Upon the third division of the business of
the Board of Trade, its general and
miscellaneous duties, something has already been
said, and a few more notes will suffice. It
has an office in Serjeant's Inn for the
registration of joint stock companies. At this
office, when such a company has been
projected, very full particulars must be filed, and
certain fees paid. The scheme being thus
"provisionally registered," may then—but
not until then—be publicly submitted to the
world. No such company, however, can
commence business until its registration has
been made complete, and "complete registration"
cannot be had by it until the draft of
its deed of settlement has been approved by
the Board of Trade, and sent in fully signed,
with four copies for filing in the registration
office. The company then has the legal
privileges of a corporation. Companies of all
kinds have to be provisionally registered, but
when—as in the case of railway companies—
they can be established only by an act of