Any person who shall, by force or violent assault, resist or obstruct any Officer of Customs, or other person duly employed for the prevention of smuggling, in the due execution of his duty, or any person acting in his aid, shall be transported for seven years, or be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for any term not exceeding three years.-Sec. 251. Any person maliciously shooting at any vessel belonging to the Queen, or in the service of the Revenue, or at any Customs' Officer or other person employed for the prevention of smuggling shall be liable to be transported for any term not less than fifteen years, or imprisoned for not less than three years.— Sec. 249. RESCUING SEIZED GOODS. Any person who shall rescue, or attempt, or endeavour to rescue, or cause to be rescued, any goods duly seized, or stave, break, or destroy the same in order to prevent seizure, shall, for the first offence, be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for not less than six months.-Sec. 247. COMPENSATION. The Commissioners of Customs may, with the sanction of the Treasury, make provision for officers, or others acting in their aid, wounded, or in any way injured, in the due execution of their office; or for the widows or families of such as are killed in the discharge of their duty.-Sec. 254. REWARDS. On the conviction of any person charged under the Customs laws, the Commissioners may award the officer or other person apprehending the offender a reward not exceeding £20.-Sec. 255. On the payment of any fine or composition the Commissioners may award to the officer, by whose means the same was recovered, such portion of it as they may think fit.-Sec. 256. In cases of seizure the Commissioners may award to the person making it any sum not exceeding the value of the goods seized; and for this purpose the value of spirits and tobacco shall be fixed by the Lords of the Treasury or the Commissioners of Customs.-Sec. 257. The Board are of opinion that the distribution of rewards in the Waterguard Department should be governed by an uniform scale, according to the number and rank of the officers concerned, and the Board therefore direct that such rewards be in future distributed in the proportion set forth in the subjoined scheme. It is, however, to be distinctly understood that in adopting this scheme as a general rule, the Board reserve to themselves the power to vary the mode of distribution, and either to increase the proportionate amount in any case in which the peculiar merits of any officer may, in their opinion, call for the grant of a higher reward, or to diminish the rate should the conduct of any officer or other circumstances appear to them not to justify the regulated roportion.-G.O., 115, 1857. 1ST SEIZURES MADE IN RUMMAGING VESSELS. 1st. By an Examining Officer and 1 Boatman. Examining Officer 2nd. By an Examining Officer and 2 Boatmen. Examining Officer 3rd. By an Examining Officer and 3 or more Boatmen. Examining Officer 4th. By a Superior Officer, an Examining Officer, and 2 or more Boatmen. Superior Officer... 7-20ths. 13-20ths. 5-20ths. 4-20ths. 11-20ths. 2ND SEIZURES MADE IN EXAMINING GOODS AND BAGGAGE. 1st. By an Examining Officer and Inferior Officer. 2nd. By a Superior Officer, 1 Inferior Officer. 3rd. By a Superior Officer, an 2 or more Inferior Officers. Examining Officer Examining Officer, and Examining do. 14-20ths. 6-20ths. 9-20ths. 8-20ths. 3-20ths. 9-20ths. 7-20ths. Examining Officer, and 4th. By a Superior Officer, a Female Searcher, and 1 or more Boatmen. Superior Officer... 3RD SEIZURES MADE BY PATROL OFFICERS. 1st. By an Examining Officer with an Out-door Officer. ... Examining Officer 12-20ths. 2nd. By an Examining Officer with 2 or more Out-door Examining Officer Out-door Officers 3rd. By a Principal Officer, an Examining Officer, and 1 Out-door Officer. 4th. By a Principal Officer, an 2 or more Out-door Officers. ASSISTING SMUGGLERS. If three or more armed persons be assembled in any part of the United Kingdom in order to assist the illegal landing or removing, or carrying away of any prohibited or dutiable goods,-or, in rescuing the same from any Customs or other authorized officers or their assistants, or, in taking it away from any place in which it has been deposited by such officers, &c., or, in rescuing any person guilty of any felonious offence against the Customs' Laws, or, in preventing the capture of any such offender, every such person shall be liable to be transported for any term not less than 15 years; or imprisoned for not less than three years. Sec. 248. Any person in company with more than four others, found with goods liable to forfeiture under any Customs or Excise Act, or in company with one other person, within five miles of the sea coast, or of any tidal river, and carrying offensive arms or weapons, or in any way disguised, shall, on conviction of such offence, be transported as a felon for the term of seven years.Sec. 250. QUESTIONS. What are the restrictions on small craft, and what vessels are exempted from these restrictions ? What are the regulations respecting vessels sailing from the Channel Islands ? For what offences are vessels liable to forfeiture ? What is a "Writ of Assistance ?" State the regulations to be observed with respect to search of persons; and how you would proceed to carry out the instructions in a case of well grounded suspicion ? PART VII. SHIP MEASURING. [This admeasurement is a scientific process, which requires from our officers a special study and instruction.-Vide 1st Report, p. 13.] [The Board are of opinion that in future no Coast Officer, Out-door Officer, or Boatman should be promoted to the office of Examining Officer or Assistant Examining Officer, unless qualified to measure vessels under the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854; and the Principal Officers of the Waterguard in London, and the Collectors at the Out-ports, in submitting the application or name of any officer for promotion, are to state whether the party be fully qualified to perform in a satisfactory manner the duty referred to.G.O., 87, 1855.] ADMEASUREMENT OF TONNAGE.* Throughout the following rules the tonnage deck shall be taken to be the upper deck in ships of less than three decks, and the second deck from below in all other ships; and in carrying such rules into effect all measurements shall be taken in feet and decimal fractions of feet.-Sec. 20. The Act prescribes that all measurements shall be taken in "feet and decimal fractions of feet." Now, as the usual measure or scale is divided only into feet, tenths, and hundreths, the simple linear measurements taken thereby can, therefore, never contain more than two places of decimals. But, as in the arithmetical division and subdivision of the measurements, any number of decimals may arise, it becomes necessary, in such a practical operation as the measurement of tonnage, to reduce this number to the fewest possible, consistent with practical correctness. This practical correctness, except in the division and sub-division of the lengths and depths, for ascertaining the "one-third of the common intervals," may be obtained without employing more than two places of decimals by simply taking care to increase the second decimal by one whenever the third amounts to the figure 5 or any higher number. Therefore, with this qualifi cation, and the above exception, two places of decimals only may be used throughout the whole of the computation, as the discrepancy arising therefrom in the tonnage of a vessel of 1,500 tons amounts only to a fraction of a ton. EXAMPLE. Suppose the measured length of a vessel to be 153.29 feet. This being divided agreeably to Rule I., by 8, gives 19 1612 feet for the common interval between the areas, which being *Compiled from Acts of Parliament, General Orders, and "Instructions to Measuring Surveyors" (1861). subdivided by 3, gives 6.387 for one-third of the common interval. Up to this point three places of decimals must be retained; but when using this last multiplier in the subsequent computation for tonnage, we need only take 6:39, instead of 6-387; and if the third decimal had been under the figure 5 instead of above it 6:38 simply would have to be taken; and so also with regard to the computation of the areas.- —(Par. 21.) All ships requiring measurement, whether for the purpose of Registry, payment of dues, or any other purpose whatever are, with the exceptions mentioned in the next section,* to be measured by the following rule : RULE I. (1).—Measure the length of a ship in a straight line along the upper side of the tonnage deck from the inside of the inner plank (average thickness) at the side of the stem to the inside of the midship stern timber or plank there, as the case may be (average thickness), deducting from this length what is due to the rake of the bow in the thickness of the deck, and what is due to the rake of the stern timber in the thickness of the deck, and also what is due to the stern timber in one third of the round of the beam; divide the length so taken into the number of equal parts required by the following table :— Class 1 دو دو 50 feet long, or under, into 2 above 50 and not exceeding 120 وو 4 equal parts. (2.) Then the hold being first sufficiently cleared to admit of the required depths and breadths being properly taken, find the transverse area of such ship at each point of division of the length as follows:-Measure the depth at each point of division from a point at a distance of one-third of the round of the beam below such deck, or, in case of a break, below a line stretched in continuation thereof to the upper side of the floor timber, at the inside of the limber strake, after deducting the average thickness of the ceiling, which is between the bilge planks and the limber strake; then, if the depth at the midship division of the length do not exceed 16 feet, divide each depth into four equal parts; then measure the inside horizontal breadth at each of the three points of division, and also at the upper and lower points of the depth, extending each measurement to the average thickness of that part of the ceiling which is between the points of measurement; number these breadths from above (i.e., numbering the upper breadth one, and so on down to the lowest breadth); multiply the second and fourth by four, and the third by two; add these products together, and to the sum add the first breadth and the fifth; multiply the quantity thus obtained by one-third of the common interval between the breadths, and the product *See Rule 2. |