Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/546

 HALSTEB P. HUMPHBBTS. �vrbarf, near the stem of the launch, ready to go after the huU and bring her back to sbore as soon as she had lost the most of her momentum; and that the use of hawsers or ancbors to check the course of a launch was not by many ship-builders considered advisable, as many accidents occurred from the use of them, and that no hawser or line which it was practicable to use could bave checked the Arbutus before she reached the point where she struck the schooner. The captain of the tug, who was jne of the respondent's witnesses, testified that he was lying at the wharf at the steru of the launch, with the head of bis tug out towards the water, and that he gave three blasts of bis wbistle just as the launch started, and one of the hands on the tug testiaed that just before the launch Mr. Malster called to him to forward and bail that schooner and warn him off ; that the schooner was tben still on her starboard tack, heading for Tyler's wharf; that he did go forward on the tug, and hallooed, and contin- ued to halloo until the tug blew her steam-whistle, but he could not see that any one on the schooner noticed him ; that when he began to halloo the schooner had not reached the line of the launch, and when the launch struck the water the schooner had gone about and was in stays. �It is clear from the testimony that the schooner went not more than her length across the line of the launch before she went about, and that she must bave started to go about just as the launch got started on the ways. It would, therefore, appear that Mr. Malster, seeing the schooner about to cross the line of the launch, and knowing that if she continued her course she would be clear of ail danger before the launch could reach her, (if the launch took the course he expected,) and feeling that every moment's detention of the launch was a great risk, and feeling confident, no doubt, that the schooner either knew of the launch or would hear the shouting he directed to be made from the tug, he took for granted that the schooner would continue her course, without waiting to see her get so far clear of the line as that she could not get back on it in time to be struck. In so doing, no doabt, Mr. ����