William R. Day

“ These provisions would be defeated if the seaman's wages, to be recovered at the end of the voyage, could be at once seized by an execution or attachment after judgment in an action at law. The evident purpose of the Federal statutes, that the seaman shall have his remedy in admiralty, would be defeated, and the seaman, in many cases, be turned ashore with nothing in his pocket, because of judgments seizing his wages, rendered, it may be, upon improvident contracts, from which it was the design and very purpose of the admiralty law to afford him protection. ”

“ It is made unlawful to pay any seaman his wages in advance, and an allotment of his wages is permitted only to grandparents, parents, wives, or children, or, under regulations of the Commissioner of Navigation, made with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, not to exceed one month's wages to a creditor in liquidation of a just debt for board or clothing. ”

“ In Maclachlan on Merchant Shipping, 4th ed., 231, that author states the effect of the statute to be to except seaman's wages from liability to attachment by a judgment creditor, as payment of such wages is valid, notwithstanding any previous sale or assignment thereof, or any attachment, encumbrance, or arrestment thereon. ”