llargea.—Wages are no longer dependent on the earning of freight: They may not he attached ; and payment of them to the seaman is valid and effeatual,notwithstanding any prior attachment, ineumbrance, or arrestment thereon, or assignment thereof.
The amount of wages due to the seaman If he fulfil his contract is the full amount originally stipulated therein to be paid him. The voyage, however, is liable to interruption by various casualties; the service of the seaman Is subject to discontinuance before the termi nation contemplated originally on both sides; and it Is not a very easy matter in general language to lay down the law which Is appli cable to each case before it arises. It is not in the power of the master, by wrongfully dismissing any of his crew in the course of the voyage, to deprive them of all or any part of their wages ; they may recover the whole, subject to the deduction of such wages as they have earned elsewhere during the period claimed for. But if the ship be lost, or if the mariner quit the vessel for the purpose of taking service in her majesty's navy, he is entitled to the wages due up to the inter ruption of his service. By desertion, however, or misconduct of a flagrant and serious character, he may forfeit all .right to wages. In case death put a period to his service on board during the voyage, it seems his representatives are entitled to be paid wages up to the day of the death, unless the contract made with the owners be such that no right accrues if the seaman do not navigate the ship to the port of destination. The French code, more liberal than our own law, where the hiring is for the voyage, directs payment of half the stipulated amount if the seaman dies on the outward voyage, and the whole 11 the death happens during the homeward passage.
In virtue of the maritime law the seamen have a lien on the ship for the amount of their wages, which enables them by process from the Court of Admiralty to arrest the vessel, and, unless the owners interpose to pay their just demand, to sell her after sentence of condemnation The Merchant Shipping Act of 1854 confers the same advantage on the master, who till then had no such remedy. The jurisdiction of the Admiralty Court, however, in claims for wages, is restrained to the case of a contract in the ordinary terms, and not under seal ; for h either it be made under seal, or be special in its stipulations, it cannel be the subject of a suit in that court, at the peril of a writ of prohi bition issuing from the courts of common law. A further restrictior
on that jurisdiction is placed by the statute, which prohibits any suit for the recovery of wages, when the sum is under GM, from beim instituted in any Court of Admiralty, Vice Admiralty, the Court o Session in Scotland, or any of the superior courts within her majesty) dominions, unless the owner of the ship is adjudged bankrupt o; declared insolvent ; or unless the ship is under arrest, or is sold by th; authority of any such court; or unless any justices, acting uncle authority of the statute, refer the case to the adjudication of sue] court; or unless neither the owner nor master is or resides wlthh twenty miles of the place where the seaman or apprentice is discharge( or put ashore. In lieu of this, the seaman is now enabled to procee( summarily before any two justices of the peace, or one etipendiar, magistrate acting in or near the place at which the service is term; nated, or at which the discharge takes place, or, in Scotland, befor any such justices or the sheriff of the county, for any sum no exceeding 501. over and above the costs. When the engagement is t terminate in the United Kingdom he is not entitled to sue for hi wages in any court abroad, unless he be discharged with the genetic, of the shipping master, chief officer of customs, British consular officet or two respectable merchants in or near the place, and with the writte consent of the master ; or Unless he prove such ill-usage on the par of the master, er by his authority, as to warrant reasonable appr( hension of danger to life. On his return, however, if he prove eithe such ill-usage or other misconduct, on the part of the owner or masts as would have entitled him but for the statutory prohibition to su for wages before the termination of the voyage, he is entitled, beside his wages, to compensation not exceeding 201, m amount.