Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/622

 614 FEDERAL KBPORTEB. �kepi the tides down, the water ail runs out of tlais basin and leaves the flats bare where these boats lay; but the preponder- ance of the proof is that ordinary low water mark is within less than 150 feet from the westerly side of Henderson street, at the part of the basin where the boats lay, and that they were below low water mark at the time they were seized. This exception must therefore be overruled. �3. The merits are clearly with the libellant. The libellant's boat was coming east ; the two steam canal boats were going west. The night was dark and rainy. The wind was blow- ing a violent gale; so violent that shortly before this collision the two steam canal boats were windbound on the berme bank of the canal, towards which side the wind blew. Before that they had been proceeding with the City of Syracuse ahead, pushed by the City of Milwaukee. The wind was so strong that this method of proceeding was abandoned as impracticable, and the City of Milwaukee took the City of Syracuse on a hawser of about 100 feet in length, and towed her in that way till the collision. The collision happened about 200 to 300 feet w-est of the "wide water" or "ox-bow," near Freeport. Before the two steam canal boats got out of the "wide water" they saw the light of the Gibson ahead, in the canal. Her light indicated that she was a horse-boat and the lights of the other boats indicated that they were steamboats. The rules, as understood by both parties, re- quired the steamboats to take the berme bank side, and the horse-boat the tow-path side of the canal. The distance at which the Gibson's light was made appears, by the evi- dence of the master and wheelsman of the City of Mil- waukee, to have been from 300 to 500 feet. �The allegation of the answer is that when the light was made the two steamboats were proceeding in the middie of the canal. The proofs show that they were not, properly speaking, in the canal, but still in the wide water, approaching and very near to the canal. But the proofs and the answer both show that, in order to get into their proper place in the canal for passing the Gibson safely, it was necessary for the steamboats to haul further towards the berme bank, which» ��� �