Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/588

 574 FSDEBAIi REPORTER. �by the authority eited, (The America, 11 Blatchf. 486.) The impossibility of raising sunken property is inferrible from cir- cumstances. Where property is sunk in broad ocean, the faot of locality will warrant the inference that it was im- possible to recover it. So in this case it is proper to infer, from the nature of the articles sunk and the locality, that the cost of raising wotxld exceed the value of the property. This inference is fair, because there has been no attempt on the part of the claimant to adduce facts ealculated to repel such an inference. Earnest objection is made to the allowance of interest. The commissioner has allowed interest upon the demurrage, in accordance with the decision in the late case of The Alexandria, S. D. of N. Y., July, 1879, where the learned judge of the southern district of New York, after examining the subject, held that interest upon demuiTage must be allowed, in order to give full indemnity. �Upon the argument here it was claimed, on behalf of the libellant, that the ruling of Judge Choate, in the case of The Alexandria, had been affirmed by the chief justice, upon appeal; while on the other hand it was claimed that a dif- ferent ruling had been made by the chief justice in the case of The New Orleans, and it was also claimed that the case of Mailer v. Express Co. 61 N. Y. 316, decided by the New York court of appeals, to which Judge Choate refers in his opinion, has since been overruled by the court of appeala in the late case of White v. Miller, October 14, 1879. See New York Weekly Digest of January 23, 1880. In this district the practice hitherto has been not to allow interest upon demurrage ; and the practice in the southern district of New York is believed to bave been the same, up to the time of the decision of the case of The Alexandria. In the case of The Baltic, in the southern district, 3 Ben. 195, no interest on the demurrage was allowed by the commissioner. The report was before the court upon exceptions, but the. question of interest was not passed on. In the case of TheTkomas Kiley, 3 Ben. 229, no interest upon the demurrage was allowed, but it does not appear that it was claimed. In the case of The Favorita, 4 Ben. 133, where demurrage formed a principal ����