Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/886

 M'caTJSLAND V. BTBAM-PBOPBLLIÎB DBLAWAEB. 8T^ �peller Delaware, on the Delaware and Earitan canal, near Kingston loek, on the night of the seventeenth of April, 1879. The canal-boat sighted the steamer, -which -was approaching her in the opposite direction, and drew in close to the tow- path side of the canal, as the usages of the canal required; but the steamer struok hear on the bow, within a foot of the stem, having also drawn in close to the tow-path side, in order to pasa between the canal-boat and that side of the canal. The exBuse made by the steamer is that the canal- boat dld not have above her stem a green light, as the raies and usages of the canal require of a boat in motion, and that she had a white light, which misled the steamer, and led her pilot to believe that the (^nal-boat was laid vsp against the opposite sido of the canal. �The testimony is that the night was vesy dark and stormy; and if, in fact, the canal-boat had carried a white light, there might be ground for this defence, since it was so dark that nothing oould be seen at any considerable distance except lights. On the^art of the canal-boat the testimony tends to show that she carried a globe lantem, with a piece of green glass inserted on the outside between the glass of the lantem and the wire fender, of an oval shape, about four and a half inches long, up and down, and three and a half inehes wide in the center, and so arranged, with reference to the flame, that Wie green rays extended 40 degrees on each side of the Une on which the boat was moving. The theory of the de- fence is either that before the collision this green ^ass got dis,placed by the wind, or the lantorn was so swayed by the wind that the light cast forward as the steamer approached was in fact a white light, or that the illumination of those parts of the lantem outside of the green glass was such as, at a distance, to give the light the effect of a white light, even to a person within the range of the green rays. Upon ail these points, however, the preponderance of evidence is with the libellant. It is very satisfactorily shown that the green glass was in place ; that the lantem was so hung against the samson's-post that it could not turn with the wind ; that, in fact, it threw a distinct and bright green light forward upon ����