Wound

A solution of the natural continuity of any of the tissues of the body. Taylor, Med. Jurispr. In jurisprudence a wound may be said to exist even if there is no effusion of blood or severing of the skin. No question is raised as to the nature of the tissue damaged, be it skin and appendages, bone, joint or internal organ; and it is even urged that the result of disease upon tissue be described as wounds. Under the statute 9 Geo. IV. c.

21, s.

12, it has been held in England that to make a wound, in criminal cases, there must bo an injury to the person by which the skin is broken; 6 C. & P. 684. See Death. WRECK (called in law Latin wreccum maris > and in law French wrec de mer). Such goods as after a shipwreck are cast upon the land by the sea, and left there within some country so as not to belong to the jurisdiction of the admiralty, but to the common law.

Co. 2d Inst. 1G7; 1 Bla. Com. 290.

A ship becomes a wreck when, in consequence of injuries received, she is rendered absolutely unnavigable, or unable to pursue her voyage, without repairs exceeding the half of her value; Wood v. Ins. Co., 6 Mass. 479, 4 Am. Dec. 163. A sunken vessel is not a wreck, but derelict; wreclc applies to property cast upon land by the sea; Baker v. Hoag, 7 N. Y. 555, 59 Am. Dec. 431; to jetsam, flotsam and ligan; Murphy v. Dunham, 38 Fed. 503. Wrecks and shipwrecked goods under a state act are confined, in their ordinary legal meaning, to ships and goods cast on shore by the sea, and do not include a boat or other property not cast ashore or thrown overboard or lost from a vessel in distress; Proctor v. Adams, 113 Mass. 376, 18 Am. Rep. 500. Coal lying in a sunken ship in Lake Michigan is not a wreck of the sea; Murphy v. Dunham, 38 Fed. 503; the United States has no title to it; id. See Sunken Wreck. Goods found at low water, between high and low water mark, and goods between the same limits partly resting on the ground, but still moved by the water, are wreck; 3 Hagg. Adra. 257, 294. Wreck, by the common law, belongs to the king or his grantee; but if claimed by the true owner within a year and a day the goods, or their proceeds, must be restored to him, by virtue of stat Westm. I., 3 Edw. I. c.

4.

Ships and goods found derelict or abandoned at sea belonged until lately to the office of the lord high admiral, by a grant from the crown, but now belong to the national exchequer, subject, however, to be But in America the king’s right in the sea-shore was transferred to the colonies, and therefore wreck cast on the sea-shore belongs to the owner of the shore, as against a mere stranger, if not reclaimed; Barker v. Bates, 13 Pick. (Mass.) 255, 23 Am. Dec. 678.

See Proctor v. Adams, 113 Mass. 377, 18 Am. Rep. 500.

In this country, the several states bordering on the sea nave enacted laws providing for the safekeeping and disposition of property wrecked on the coast. In one case, it was held that the United States succeeded to the prerogative of the British crown, and are entitled to derelict ships or goods found at sea and unclaimed by the true owner; but in the southern district of Florida it is held that such derelicts, in the absence of any act of congress on the subject, belong to the finder or salvor, subject to the claim of the true owner for a year and a day. Marv. Wreck. Wrecked goods, upon a sale or other act of voluntary importation, become liable to duties; The Concord, 9 Cra. (U. S.) 387, 3 L. Ed. 768. A wrecked vessel, in common phraseology, includes a sunken vessel; see Gilchrist v. Godman, 79 Fed. 970. The act of congress, March 3, 1899, provides that, whenever a vessel is wrecked and sunk in a navigable channel, it shall be the duty of the owner immediately to mark it by a buoy or beacon by day and a lighted lantern by night. Failure to do so within six hours (one hour only being required) rendered the owner of a canal boat liable in damages to a passing vessel colliding with the wreck; The Anna M. Fahy, 153 Fed. 866, 83 C. C. A. 48; so when not marked for two days; The Macy, 170 Fed. 930, 96 C. C. A. 146. Marking a sunken yacht (18 feet) with pieces of wood, two partly submerged buckets and a pocket handkerchief on a pole, was insufficient; The Fred. Schlesinger, 71 Fed. 747. The act also requires the owner to commence the removul of the wreck at once; failing which (or upon its earlier abandonment) it may be removed by the secretary of war. The owner is required to maintain the mark during all this period; Second Pool Coal Co. v. Coal Co., 188 Fed. 892, 110 O. C. A. 520. See Salvage; Total Loss.