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33
The original plan of considering Canal Boats simply as vessels, and placing
them under the charge of the Inspectors for each district, has been found to
work well, and therefore no special Canal Boat Inspector has been appointed.
The statistics of boats visited is given in the Appendix.
The total number inspected during the twelve months was 445, as against
557 in the year 1890. These registered for 1,437 carried only 947 ; of these
395 were found to be in conformity with the Acts and Regulations, leaving
only 50 in which there was any cause for complaint. Most of these were,
moreover, minor offences, and in no single instance were any legal
proceedings taken.
The system of sending with a notice of complaint, a form of Certificate to
be filled up by a duly constituted Inspector and returned, has now been in
operation for eighteen months, and the result is certainly satisfactory.
In the majority of instances such certificates find their way back, and in
practically all cases the defects are properly remedied.
Absence of certificate is gradually becoming rarer, and is nearly always
due to the carelessness of the Master.
It frequently happens, that a boat is measured and the fee paid, while the
certificate may be delayed by the Registration Authority for weeks or even
months.
It would be well in these cases if the Registration Authority granted some
provisional pass or certificate, setting forth the actual facts of the case and
explaining the cause of absence.
Overcrowding is also becoming less common. The certainty of detection
has a powerful influence on both owners and masters.
Unfortunately, however, the law itself tends to encourage the most
dangerous kind of overcrowding, viz., the carrying of very young children.
It is not uncommon, for instance, to find a boat registered for two adults
and three children, carrying two adults and say four children, the youngest
being an infant of only a few months.
With these cases one is powerless to deal. If proceedings are taken no
conviction will follow. The law says a child under a certain age is to
have half the allowance of an adult, and the natural inference is, that the
younger the child, the less space it requires.
This may be true so far as the actual space occupied by its body is
concerned, but it is perfectly certain that an abundant supply of fresh air is
even of greater importance to an infant than to a grown person. Firstly,
because on the due supply of light and air the development of the child
depends, and secondly, because in bad weather and at night when the scanty