If any master of such vessel of the burden of fifty tons or upward shall carry out any seaman or mariner, except apprentices or servants, without such contract or agreement being first made and signed by the seamen, such master shall pay to every such seaman the highest price or wages which shall have been given at the port or place where such seaman was shipped, for a similar voyage, within three months next before the time of such shipping, if such seaman shall perform such voyage; or if not, then for such time as he shall continue to do duty on board such vessel; and shall moreover be liable to a penalty of twenty dollars for every such seaman, recoverable, one-half to the use of the person prosecuting for the same, and the other half to the use of the United States. Any seaman who has not signed such a contract shall not be bound by the regulations nor subject to the penalties and forfeitures contained in this Title [R. S., 4501-4613]. (R. S., 4521.) At the foot of every such contract to ship upon such a vessel of the burden of fifty tons or upward there shall be a memorandum in writing of the day and the hour when such seamen who shipped and subscribed shall render himself on board to begin the voyage agreed upon. If any seaman shall neglect to render himself on board the vessel for which he has shipped at the time mentioned in such memorandum without giving twenty-four hours' notice of his inability to do so, and if the master of the vessel shall, on the day in which such neglect happened, make an entry in the log book of such vessel of the name of such seaman, and shall in like manner note the time that he so neglected to render himself after the time appointed, then every such seaman shall forfeit for every hour which he shall so neglect to render himself one-half of one day's pay, according to the rate of wages agreed upon, to be deducted out of the wages. If any such seaman shall wholly neglect to render himself on board of such vessel, or having rendered himself on board shall afterwards desert, he shall forfeit all of his wages or emoluments which he has then earned. [This section shall not apply to fishing or whaling vessels or yachts, Dec. 21, 1898, sec. 26.] (R. S., 4522; Dec. 21, 1898; sec. 2.) Discharge in foreign trade. All seamen discharged in the United States from merchant vessels engaged in voyages from a port in the United States to any foreign port, or, being of the burden of seventy-five tons or upward, from a port on the Atlantic to a port on the Pacific, or vice versa, shall be discharged and receive their wages in the presence of a duly authorized shipping-commissioner under this Title [R. S., 4501-4613], except in cases where some competent court otherwise directs; and any master or owner of any such vessel who discharges any such seaman belonging thereto, or pays his wages within the United States in any other manner, shall be liable to a penalty of not more than fifty dollars. (R. S., 4549.)