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FEDERAL REPORTER.
received with regard to the delay was from seeing an item in the neWBpapers reporting that the Jason had been disabled at sea, and had put back to Amsterdam. It would seem that ordinary rules of commercial dealing would require some notice to be given when goods, under a contract of immediate shipment, are detained in the port of departure such a length of time; but, conceding this to be so, the neglect to give such a notice cannot entail liability for damage other than is shown to have actually resulted from the neglect. 'fhe evidence adduced on behalf of the ship-owners shows that the Jason was the only vessel employed by them between Amsterdam anti Baltimore, and that, during the 104 days she was being repaired, there was no steamer sailed from Amsterdam to Baltimore, and that they could obtain no other stearner upon reasonable terms. It is testified that they made efforts to procure such a steamer, but could obtain none, either at Amsterdam or elsewhere, except by guarantying a much higher rate of freight upon a full cargo to Baltimore, and also on the return voyage back to the continent. There is no testimony to controvert this, and the court must accept it as the fact. If, then, there was no opportunity of transhipping the iron from Amsterdam, what could the owner have done if he had been notified of the actual state of affairs? I have held with respect to the beans, which were perishable, that if the owner had not been misled as to the possibility of discharging his perishable goods, and also as to the probable duration of the detention, it must be presumed that, as a prudent owner, he would have reclaimed them, and sent them by some conveyance to Baltimore from Rotterdam, Antwerp, or elsewhere, or that he would have them sold in some other market, or, at any rate, he would have stored them in some suitable place, because, to keep them stowed three months in an iron ship was to risk their destruction, and to lose the season; but this is by no means true with respect to a heavy imperishable a.rticle, such as steelwire rods, intended to be used only for manufacture. There is no that the owners evidence to prove, and no inference fairly to be of the iron would have acted differently if they had known all the facts as they existed. Even if they could have obtained the iron from the Jason without payment of any freight, they would have been at the expense of discharging it, and at the expense of transporting it to some other port, putting it aboard another vessel, and paying freight on it to the United States. With regard to the rusting of the iron, if the OWnel" had thought that to keep it under hatches, on board the ship, was not the best place for it, he would have had to consider whether the probability of some increase of expense in removing the rust was not to be preferred to the expense of unloading and reloading, and the expense of storing it in some drier place, if, indeed, protected storage for such a weight of iron could have been f<lund convenient to the ship. There is no proof that any of these things could
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have been done, or, if possible, would have been done, by the owner of the iron, if present in Amsterdam. If it was not possible to have transhipped and forwarded the iron by any other conveyance, at a reasonable cost; and if, considering the value of the iron, and its imperishable character, and the expense of handling it, a prudent owner would not have stored it,-then it is difficult to see how the owner's position was made worse by not having had notice. In the a,bsence of other evidence, the reasonable presumption and inference is that a prudent owner would have taken the chances of allowing the iron to remain on the vessel, and would have suffered the possible additional rust and the delay, so that, in the end, he might, without additional expense, obtain the advantage of the very low freight which the owners of the Jason had agreed to take. The delay not having been the fault of the ship-owners, and the care of the iron having been, under the circumstances, reasonable and proper, and the want of notice not having been shown to have prejudiced the ownel'S of the iron, their libel must be dismissed.
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(DiafJrict Oourt, E. D. New York.
February 17, 1886.)
COLLISION-STEAMER AND SCHOONER-CHANGE OF COURSE-EvIDENCE.
As the schooner M. M. was approaching New York harbor on the night of July 18. 1884, she was run into and sunk, near the Scotland light·ship by the steamer K., which had lately left New York. The schooner's witnesses testified that from the time the steamer's lights were sighted the schooner's course was never altered until the collision, and that her red light was CODtinually exhibited to the approaching steamer. The evidence for the K. showed that the green light of the schooner was first seen a little on the steamer's port bow, whereupon the latter ported; that when the schooner's light had come to bear over the starboard bow of the steamer the schooner ported, and that this change of helm brought her under the bows of the K. Held, on the evidence, that the steamer's account was the true one; that the change of course on the part of the schooner caused the collision, for whic1 she was alone responsible..
In Admiralty. 'l'his was the case of a collision between the schooner Mary Matheson, which was bound on a voyage from the Potomac river to New Haven, Connecticut, and the steam-ship Kanawha, bound from New York to Newport News. The collision occurred near the Scotland light-ship. The steam-ship struck the schooner on her port quarter, sinking her almost immediately, and causing a loss of about $13,000, to recover which t-his action was brought against the steam-ship by Higgins and others, owners of the schooner. The schooner was make 1 Reported
by R. D. & Wyllys Benedict, Esqs., of the New York bar.