Should any master or owner of any merchant vessel of the United States neglect to provide a sufficient quantity of stores to last for a voyage of ordinary duration to the port of destination, and in consequence of such neglect the crew are compelled to accept a reduced scale, such master or owner shall be liable to a penalty as provided in section forty-five hundred and sixty-eight of the Revised Statutes. (R. S., 4564. Dec. 21, 1898; sec. 12.) Any three or more of the crew of any merchant-vessel of the United States bound from a port in the United States to any foreign port, or being of the burden of seventy-five tons or upward, and bound from a port on the Atlantic to a port on the Pacific, or vice versa, may complain to any officer in command of any of the vessels of the United States Navy, or consular officer of the United States, or shipping-commissioner or chief officer of the customs, that the provisions or water for the use of the crew are, at any time, of bad quality, unfit for use, or deficient in quantity. Such officer shall thereupon examine the provisions or water, or cause them to be examined; and if, on examination, such provisions or water are found to be of bad quality and unfit for use, or to be deficient in quantity, the person making such examination shall certify the same in writing to the master of the ship. If such master does not thereupon provide other proper provisions or water, where the same can be had, in lieu of any so certified to be of a bad quality and unfit for use, or does not procure the requisite quantity of any so certified to be insufficient in quantity, or uses any provisions or water which have been so certified as aforesaid to be of bad quality and unfit for use, he shall, in every such case, be liable to a penalty of not more than one hundred dollars; and upon every such examination the officers making or directing the same shall enter a statement of the result of the examination in the log-book, and shall send a report thereof to the district judge for the judicial district embracing the port to which such vessel is bound; and such report shall be received in evidence in any legal proceedings. (R. S., 4565.) If the officer to whom any such complaint in regard to the provisions or the water is made certifies in such statement that there was no reasonable ground for such complaint, each of the parties so complaining shall forfeit to the master or owner his share of the expense, if any, of the survey. [This section shall not apply to fishing or whaling vessels or yachts—Dec. 21, 1898, sec. 26.] (R. S., 4566. Dec. 21, 1898; sec. 13.)