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70
As in the case of the Lascar seamen, these Asiatics—their number being in
excess of the number of bunks—are supplied with hammocks.
The ventilation is by means of a swan-neck ventilator of oval section, 12
inches by 4, and a cowl ventilator of 18 inches diameter.
The swan-neck ventilator being over a bunk was, of course, stopped up, the
18-inch ventilator acting as an "uptake," any replacement of air would occur
by the stairway which opens in the immediate vicinity of the water closets.
All the crews' quarters will be seen were fitted with side ports, but these
were not always available for ventilation, and were inadequate so far as
lighting was concerned.
All these arrangements appear to have been approved by the Authorities
responsible for the administration of the Merchant Shipping Act, but I am glad
to record that on my making representations in the proper quarter, considerable
improvements were carried out.
The case of these vessels serves once more to illustrate the difficulty which
exists, and always will exist where sanitary questions, such as ventilation
and so forth are carried out apparently without any regard to the object to
be attained.
It was quite evident that whoever was responsible for approving the plans
of the crews' quarters of the above mentioned four vessels, must have sanctioned
the position of the ventilators without considering or even caring where they
were to be placed in relation to the bunks, certainly no one with any knowledge
of human nature or the principles of ventilation would have sanctioned such
an arrangement. Perhaps the approval was given before the quarters were
fitted up, and I recommend that a communication be sent to the Board of
Trade, urging them to give instructions that crews' quarters are not to be
approved until inspected and found to be satisfactory from a sanitary point of
view, after they are fitted up and ready for occupation.
The accommodation usually provided for seamen is a disgrace to 20th
century civilisation, being much like that possessed by the cave dweller of
old, and this condition will remain so long as so many shipowners, when
building new vessels, are more concerned with reducing the registered
tonnage than in providing sanitary and humane accommodation for the seamen
who have to live and work on board.
New vessels are daily being built with the crew's quarters situated in the
fore part, where sufficient light cannot be provided, where ventilators have to
be removed in bad weather, where the firemen on leaving the stokehold, hot
and perspiring, in bad weather are drenched with cold water on their way to
their miserable quarters forward, in fact I have often been told by certain
masters of ships that they have had to slow the vessel down sometimes to