Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/886

 678 fEDEBAL BEFOBTEB, �The rule of law seems to be well settled that the ship is not responsible for injury necessarily resulting to the goods of one shipper, by a general ship, from their being carried in the same vessel with the goods of other shippers, which, by asage, are a proper part of the same general cargo ; but "if such injury, nevertheless, could have been avoided by the exercise of reasonable skill and attention on the part of the persons employed in the conveyance of the goods, then it is ûot deemed to be, in the seuse of the law, such a loss as will exempt the carrier from liability, but rather a loss occasioned by his negligence and inattention to his duty." This is the rule, even though the proximate cause of the injury is a peril of the sea, which brings the injurions force or quality of the dan- gerous article into operation upon the other. Clark v. Bam- well, 12 How. 280; Lamb v. Pinkman, 1 Sprague, 843. Where the carrier is innocently ignorant of the dangerous qualities of the article shipped — as, for instance, where the article is new in commerce, and its properties not known •witbin commercial experience in the particular trade, and in fact unknown to those charged with its carriage, or where there is nothing to indicate or create a suspicion of its being dangerous — it is not negligence in the carrier to omit such precautions as the exercise of reasonable prudence would require, if the dangerous qualities of the article were known. The Nitro-Olycerine Case, 16 Wall. 524; Pierce v. Winsar, 2 Cliff. 18; Braise v. Braitland, 6 Elb. Bl. 485. In this case, however, it is shown that bleaching powders have long been an article of commerce in the Liverpool trade, as parts of the general cargoes, and that the dangerous and corrosive qualities of their fumes are well known, a matter of common knowledge in the trade, and so also of the effect of the break- ing of the casks in liberating the fumes, and the liability of the casks to come apart from the action of the powders. The reasonable care that must be exereised to exonerate the car- rier must, therefore, be measured by the known danger and his means of guarding against it. In discussing a similar question, where paper stock was injured by oil and coal dust, Judge Blatchford says: "The vessel being up as a general ��� �