Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/373

 366 FEDERAL REPORTER. �claimed in the libel, is a reasonable and just compensation. It further alleged that seventy-five cents a day, for the use of said wharf by said boat, is a reasonable and just com- pensation, and the only sum that can be reasonably and lawfully claimed for the wharfage of a barge of the char- acter of the John M. Welch, because it had been the price invariably charged for the wharfage of such boats for many years previous to the year 1870, and still is, and ever since bas been, the rate of wharfage per day of the same class of boats as is the John M. Welch, which were engaged in navi- gating the canals of the state of New York, and were em- ployed upon its rivers. �The foregoing pleadings having been put in, the claimants made an application to the supreme court of the United States for a writ of prohibition, to restrain the district court from ex- ercising jurisdiction of the suit. The application was founded on a petition, which set forth the following matters : The John M. Welch is a vessel of about 209 tons carrying capacity. She is without sails or self-motive power of any kind. She can- not be used independently of extra motive agency. On the twentieth of October, 1876, the day when the process was issued against her, she had completed a trip from the city of Baltimore, bringing a cargo of coal, and forming one of a tow of barges, ail under the lead of a steam-tug, which made the trip from Baltimore to New York by way of the Chesapeake and Delaware canal, the Delaware river, and the Delaware and Earitan canal. She reached the port of New York on the tenth of October, 1876. She took wharfage at the pier or wharf at the foot of Bank street, North river, and remained there till the twentieth of the same month. A bill of wharf- age was rendered by the libellants, charging for nine days inside wharfage, at $3.60 a day, and for one day outside wharfage, at $1.80 a day, amounting in ail to $34.20. The petitioners are, and for many years have been, the owners of a large number of such barges as the John M. Welch, ail of them of the same description and oharacter, a&d of the same tonnage. The petitioners have been engaged in the said busi- aess of transportation for nearly 20 years. Some of their ����