Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/70

 «2 FEDERAL REPORTER. �217. Both parties agree that the steamer was well built, and that in the general sense she was seaworthy when the voyage began and when it ended at the port of destination, the only defeet alleged by the libellants being that in consequence of her peculiar construction and the insufficiency of her ceiling and dunnage, she was unfit to carry sheet iron stowed in her aft lower hold on such a voyage during the winter and early spring months of the year; and the court is of the opinion that the great weight of the evidence fuUy sustains that prop- osition. It may be that the steamer would have been a fit and proper vessel to carry such cargo on such a voyage in a milder season of the year, or that she would have been a fit and proper vessel for the voyage in question if her ceiling had been water-tight, or if the sheet iron had been stowed be- iween decks; but itis very clear, in the judgment of the court, ihat the construction and defective ceiling of the steamer, taken in connection with the place and manner of stowage, rendered her unfit to transport such goods on such a voyage at that season of the year. By the terms of the bill of lading safe custody is as much a part of the contract of the carrier as due transport and riglit delivery. When shipped the sheet iron was in good order and condition, and when delivered it was badly damaged by sait water, the evidence showing to the satisfaction of the court that the water obtained access to the goods through the seams or crevices in the ceiling of the steamer. �Evidence of leakage is not exhibited in the record, and in- àsmuch as it is proved that the cargo stowed above the iron in the same hold came out dry, it seems clear, almost to a "demonstration, that if the ceiling had been water-tight no such damage would bave been occasioned, and that the swash- ing of the bilge-water between the sides of the vessel and the ceiling would not bave caused it to reach the sheet iron^ though stowed in the aft lower hold. Where goods are shipped and the usual bill of lading given, promising to deliver the same in good order, the dangers of the seas excepted, without more, and they are found to be damaged, the onus probandi is upon the owners of the vessel to show that the injury was ��� �