THE MAIL STEAMER MONOWAI.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 140, 15 June 1893, Page 12

THE MAIL STEAMER MONOWAI.

STEERAGE PASSENGERS COM-

PLAINT

ALLEGED OVER-CROWDING.

It will be remembered that tho Union S.S. Company's mail steamer, Monowai, whon she passod through hereon the last outward trip to Sub Francisco from Sydney, had a larao crowd of passengers on board, and that there were complaints of over-crowding en the part of the stcarage passengers. A report from" a San Francisco papor, cJamd May 14th, tp hand to-day by the Monowai on her return passage, says :"A good many of the steerage and a tow of the cabin passengers who arrived on Friday aflernoon from Australia and Now Zealand on tho British steamer Monowai have a grievance. They claim that the accommodations the steerage and some of tho cabin' paasangors had to put up with were not, in many cases, what they were represented to be at the time of engaging passage in Sydney and Auckland, and that," instead of having comfortable berths, over ninety mala passengers were put in the cargo hold over the keelson, where part of Sells' Brothers menagerie was once accommodated on a former trip. Bunks three tiers high and four wide had been builb in this Bection, and lob lobby boys who waited on the passengers called ib 'Chinaman's Flat.1 It is claimed that the marine cubic air law for eteerago passengers has been violated. It is asserted that the smell'of the ship's bilge and foul air drove many of the passengers who were allotted to these quarters to remain on deck at night in all kinds of weather, being unable to stand the atmosphere in tho lower hold." A complaint was laid before the Collector of Customs at 'Frisco by a number of the passengers, one of whom said:—"l find that we have no recourse against tho steamer or her owners for overcrowding, bub we can go after them on technical points. The placing of three tiers of bunks in Lhe lower hold, when the marine law saya only two shall be put up, is one violation, and the allowing of more than ono person to every 120 feet of cubic air space occupied is another. The steerage of the steamer was shamefully crowded. There were only four washbasins and two toweia for over ninety mon, and ib was a hard thing to.keep clean. There was a steerage bathtub, but ib took so long for 180 steerage passengers to get a turn that the majority dispensed with the bath. Between decks, whore the women slept on one side and the men on the other, a curtain was hung between. When the men all went to bed tho women retired. None of the latter had any opportunity to get-to the toilet during the night without crawling over the men's bunks. We complained to the health authorities ab bobh Sydney and Auckland, bub they declined to make tho steamship company hold back anybody. Captain Carey and the officers or tho steamer did all they could for us, and tho food was good, bub the accommodations v/oro criminally overcrowded." Some of the passengers signed a protest (

against the steamer to be forwarded to the Government of New South Wales. A claim for damages waa to be presented at San Francisco against the steamer if any point of law could be found to justify it.