View report page

35
The crews of colliers often bring ready cooked food from home and heat it as
required, but in general, cooking is all done in a frying pan, little use being made
of the oven which is frequently defective. Much tinned food is consumed. The
usual beverage is tea, and when the men are too tired to be bothered to prepare a
meal strong tea takes its place. Probably fried food and strong tea are mainly
responsible for the digestive troubles which appear to be very common amongst
the crews of coasters.
Long Hours of Duty.
Coasters are quickly loaded and discharged so that many have only a day or
only a few hours in port. The two or three seamen have to strip hatches, rig cargo
gear, tally, buy stores, cover up, sweep holds and prepare to load further up or down
the river. This routine means working long hours and then carrying on sea watches
as soon as the cargo is completed. There are steam vessels with no fireman. The
engineers must then do their own firing.
To ascertain the exact number of hours worked per week is difficult, as there are
differences of opinion as to how they should be counted. Masters are not inclined
to include "stand-by" periods when the crew expect to be turned out in an hour
or so to some essential duty to facilitate loading or discharging. At sea everyone
works 84 hours per week, but work in port adds very considerably to this figure,
and Mr. Beattie has records of 120 hours per week, and states that the average on
the coast is 110 hours per week.
These conditions of cramped living quarters, with the absence of reasonable
comfort and convenience, long hours of work, unsatisfactory and ill-cooked food must
be detrimental to the health of the officers and men. No one would expect life on
a coaster to be easy, it must be strenuous and at times dangerous, more so indeed
than on foreign-going vessels, but because the life is hard it is the more important
that everything possible should be done to keep the men engaged in the coasting
trade physically fit.
VII.—FOOD INSPECTION.
The fact that the Port of London extends over such a wide area and that Foodstuffs
may be landed at almost any point makes it impossible to divide the Staff
strictly into Food Inspectors and Sanitary Inspectors. There are certain parts of the
Docks where the nature and quantity of the Foodstuffs landed are such that a wholetime
Food Inspector is essential, but there are many districts where food inspection
and sanitary inspection must be combined. For this reason every Sanitary Inspector
in the Port of London is required to qualify as a Food Inspector, and at the present
time ten of the total Staff of twelve Inspectors are qualified in both respects.
So great are the food imports in London that it is obviously impossible for everything
to come under inspection. At the same time, the control is greater than might
at first appear possible, for Inspectors have not only the information contained in the
Customs Bill of Entry at their disposal, but, from the fact that they are constantly
on the Docks, they have many sources of information open to them, and they receive
the assistance of Customs Officers and others. From experience also, they know
what has proved consistently sound and what needs their careful attention. They
recognise what is new, and therefore to be carefully examined. Above all, they
receive every assistance from the importers, who do not wish to put food of even
doubtful quality on the market. There is, however, another way in which a Port
Health Authority may act if, from their own observation or from reports received
from other Sanitary Authorities, it appears necessary to exercise complete control
over any particular class of imported food.