Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/264

250, and as quickly as the bells could be rung, he rang to go ahead full speed, wide open, and thereafter till the collision she was going forward with accelerated speed. Immediately upon receiving the signal of two whistles from the City Point the master of the Narragansett rang to stop and back full speed, and her engine was reversed as soon as was possible, and continued to work full speed astern up to the instant of collision, and the evidence is clear that at the instant of collision she had no perceptible headway oh her. The precise point at which the bow of the Narragansett was when the order to reverse was given is not fixed, but I am satisfied by the evidence of those in her pilot-house that it was given as quickly as it could be given on receiving the reply of the City Point.

The point made by the learned counsel for the libellant, that there was delay in giving this order, seems to be based upon the testimony of one of the witnesses as to how far the Narragansett had run forward when this order was given. This was a matter of judgment merely as to distance. Some distance was run, undoubtedly, from the position when the single whistle was blown by the Narragansett. The Narragansett kept on till there was time for the City Point to reply, and for the master of the Narragansett to ring his bells. But the testimony of several entirely credible witnesses is to the effect that the order to reverse was given without any delay, and this must control the mere judgment as to distance run, which is little better than a guess at best. Now, it is entirely incredible that while the Narragansett, assuming that she started immediately upon giving her long whistle, starting from a dead stand-still, was running 308 feet and there coming to a stand-still again, the City Point, at a uniform speed of nine miles an hour, should have only gone forward 650 feet.

The City Point, if going nine miles an hour, made 780 feet in a minute. Experiments made with the Narragansett show that it ordinarily requires from one minute and thirty-three seconds to one minute and forty-five seconds for her to