RECORDS FRAGMENTARY 19

the ship upon which he was injured was at sea. At the present time
depositions in many cases can not be obtained until long after the
accident when the incidents of its occurrence have dimmed in the
memory of witnesses and details appearing to be minor in nature at
the time but vital in making a just settlement are not available. The
agencies through whom settlements are now negotiated often experience
 great difficulty in obtaining unquestionable facts in regard to an
accident. One of the marine underwriters in a memorandum to
each of their clients in regard to statements of witnesses to accidents
said, “It seems that masters are under the impression that inasmuch
as the agency has a representative who boards the vessel on arrival,
it is not necessary for the master or his officers to take any action
other than to make.out a very hasty report.” This statement seems
to express the general tendency of reports of accidents as the bureau
has found them in this study.
There is also the question of limitations. The voyages of some
vessels cover a period of a year or more with an indeterminate ending.
 Some ships that carry on the trade of the northern seas sail
with the intention of an early return, but are often frozen in for the
winter in inaccessible locations. Such incidents can never be forecast
 and voyages are thus necessarily lengthened. It is obvious that
limitations that apply to the laws of the land would in many instances
be far too rigid and prejudicial to the interests of injured seamen.

Records Fragmentary

THE inauguration of a general system of keeping records of details
of injuries to American seamen would work for the interests of
both the shipping companies and the seaman. It is not unusual for
accident claims to be filed among those for property damage, cargo
shortage, cargo damage, hospitalization of alien seamen, etc. Approximately
 6,000 such cases were consulted to obtain the 1,195 cases of
injury used in this report. .
Approximately 90 per cent of the injury cases in the primary
sources were incomplete for the purposes of this study. The bureau
therefore proceeded to various other sources for information and in
so doing has been able to complete a total of 1,195 cases out of 1,981
cases obtained in the primary sources. Additional information
necessary was obtained partly by correspondence and partly by
sending representatives of the bureau directly to trace records of
ships’ logs, hospital treatment, treatment by private physicians,
records of attorneys, shipping commissioners, and the seamen themselves.
 In this work agents of the bureau visited, in addition to
the New York area, 12 ports on the east coast, 5 ports on the Gulf
of Mexico, and 6 ports on the west coast; a total of 38 hospitals,
9 physicians, 8 attorneys, 24 shipowners, and many individuals
including seamen.
In the consideration of data ¢ollected in this study no weight
could be given the unknown factor in a large number of cases—that is,
all the claims covered, with few exceptions, have brought the injured
man in direct contact with the claim adjuster of either a shipping
company or a marine underwriter during settlement negotiations,
while in this study the bureau has had only cold facts to work with
and has had no opportunity to appraise the actual disability.