5th. Withholding seamen’s baggage to prevent them from seeking employment on their own account. Prohibition and penalty, Section 4536, U. S. R. S., as amended February 18, 1895; page 68, U. S. Navigation Laws. 6th. Soliciting lodgers (employment of runners) on inward-bound ships. Section 4607, U. S. R. S; page 71, U. S. Navigation Laws. All these violations tend directly to the demoralization and degradation of sailors, and ought to be immediately abolished. Why our shipping laws should be so frequently broken, and with the utmost impunity, is, I think, partly due to their ambiguous construction, for many of them were prepared by either ship-owners or crimps with an abundance of political influence, and also partly to our lax method of carrying out the laws that we have framed; and they are disregarded because it would not be to the advantage of any one save the sailor, for whom they were supposed to have been enacted, to enforce them. The grievances of seamen are not popular subjects with the authorities, because of the peculiar obstacles generally met with in efforts to prove them; while the amount of damages awarded to sailors, except in unusual cases, do not offer sufficient inducements to the sort of maritime lawyers who would be likely to bring the cases to a successful issue. As that able writer on the subject and champion of sailors, Mr. James H. Williams, says, “The complaining seaman has usually arrayed against him the combined powers of the wealthy ship-owners; the cunning, unscrupulous, and designing crimp; the sagacity and ability of the most experienced lawyers; and sometimes the traditional prejudice of the judicial mind is often turned against him. With this combination to overcome on the merits of his case alone, the allegations of the sailor must be well sustained indeed to enable him to win.” As for the cases of sailors suing for damages for maltreatment at sea, the difficulties encountered by them when seeking justice lie in the facilities afforded the offender--that is, the master or mate--to escape; the obstacles that the owners put in the way of his apprehension; and the disposal of the witnesses--“shanghaiing”--either by _bribery or intimidation by the crimps_.