Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/619

 MALONY V. CITY OP MILWAUKEB. 611 �Malony V. City op Milwaukeb, etc. �(District Court, 8. B. New York. April 3, 1880.) �AJ5MIBALTT JiTBisDicTroN — Maiîitimb Tort ON Canal — "Navigable Watbr op THE United States." — Analleged maritime tort, committed upon an artiflcial water-way or canal opeiied by a state for the purposes of commerce, is within the admiralty junsdiction of the United States courts, where such water-way is in fact used as a hlghway of commerce between the atates of the Uùion and between foreign countriea. �Libel to recover damages caused by a collision. �E. D. McCarthy, for libellant. �F. A. Wilcox, for claimants. �Choate, J. This is a libel to recover damages caused by a collision between the libellant's canal boat Oliver C. Gib- son and the steam canal boat City of Syracuse, while the lat-. ter was in tow of the steam canal boat City of Milwaukee, which was proceeding under steam and towing the City of Syracuse on a hawser of about 100 feet in length. The col- lision happened on the evening of November 2, 1877. The place of the collision was in the Erie canal, about 100 miles east of Buffalo, in the county of Munroe, and state of New York. The canal boats City of Milwaukee and City of Syra- cuse were attached by the marshal of this district, on the process issued in this case, in a place called the New Jersey central basin, within the limits of Jersey City. This basin communicates with the bay of New York through the Morris canal basin, and the place of seizure was about half a mile from what is now the open bay, and at a point about 500 feet southerly of the original shore line at high-water mark, and about 150 feet westerly from the westerly side of Henderson street, which is at that place an artiûcial structure built out into the bay upon the flats. Thirty years ago this basin in which the beats were seized was part of the bay of New York, ' and admitted to be below the ordinary high-water line on the Jersey shore. �Two defences are made by way of exception, as well as by answer, which it is necessary to dispose of before considering the meritsof the case: (1) that the subject-matterof the suil ��� �