Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/830

 818 FEDERAL REPORTER. �cannot free themselves by an abandonment as against third persons, to whom indemnity is due, by reason of the faults or misdemeanors of the master. The difference is, nevertheless, little justifiable in law, seeing that the reasons which have Buffi'ced to limit the liability of vessel-owners for the act of the captain apply as forcibly with regard to the acts of the master of a steam-boat navigating a river." 1 Hoechster et sacre, Droit Com. 68. �The fijst English statute upon this subject, passed in the reign of George III., extended gener ally to ail ships and ves- Bôls; but in Hunter v. McOown, 1 Bligh, 573^ it was held that lighters were not included, and that the policy of the law limited its application to sea-going vessels. In the merchants' shipping act of 1854 (17 and 18 Vict. c. 104, par. 603) the words "sea going" were expressly used, but in the merchants' shipping amendment act of 1862 (25 and 26 Vict. c. 63) they ■were omitted. Our own limited liability act was passed in 1851, soon after the decision of the supreme court in the case of The Lexington, 6 How. 344, and was modelled after one of the early English acts. State statutes of a similar import had existed for some time in Maine and Massachusetts. The act itself extends in terms to ail vessels, and contains no restrictions except such as are speciûed in the last section. Eev. St. § 4289. This act "shall not apply to the owners of any canal-boat, barge, or lighter, or to any vessel of any de- scription whatsoever, used in rivers or inland navigation." Hence, any vessel not specially nàmed in this exception, is, prima facie at least, entitled to the benefit of the act. At the same time, as Mr. Justice Swayne observed in Jones v. Thf Ghuaranty e Indi Co. 101 U.'S. 626, "a thing may be within a statut©, but not within its letter, or within the letter, yet not within' the statute. The intent of the law-maker is the law." It is perfectly ohvious that there must be classes of vessels ,to' which the statute is not applicable, though they are not mentioned in the exception. Itwas not necessary to except lighters by name, for it had long before been decided in England that lighters were not within the purview of the act. Hunter v. McGorn, 1 Bligh, 573. ] ����