Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/209

 THE 8TEAM-B0AT DELAWARB. 197 �slip, heads in directly for it, or about west. The testimony of her pilot and lookout was that she took such a course on this trip, and that they did not notice the lights of the tug at ail till the ferry-boat got directly headed for the slip, and they say at a distance of about 600 feet outaide of it. There is a great weight of testimony in support of the claim of the tug that before the ferry-boat reached this point the tug gave her a single whistle. The testimony on the part of the libellant is conflicting as to whether the Delaware answered the one whistle of the tug with a single whistle. The pilot and one of the deck hands of the tug testify that she did. Other wit- nesses on the part of the libellant testify that she did not, or at least that they heard no reply. The witnesses from the ferry-boat testify that she did not give the tug a single whistle. Upon the whole, I think the weight of the evidence is that she neither noticed the one whistle of the tug nor answered it, nor at the time the tug whistled had seen her lights, although they were plainly in sight and had moved slowly down from pier 8. �This is in substance the effect of the testimony of the pilot and lookout of the ferry-boat, and I think it extremely im- probable that if she had answered the tug's signal with a single whistle she would, in direct violation of that signal, have immediately headed across the bow of the tug, and attempted to run into the slip ahead of her. The pilot and deck-hand of the tug must therefore be mistaken. A long time elapsed between the occurence and the giving of their testimony, and their recolleetion may well have been at fault on this point, or they may have heard something at the time which they mistook for an answering whistle. Almost im- mediately after the tug gave her one whistle, her pilot ob- served that the ferry-boat was swinging to the west and heading for her slip, and still coming on at full speed. She was running at a speed of about 10 miles an hour. The pilot of the tug immediately rung to slow, stop, and back the tug, and she was baeking at the time of the collision, arid her headway by the land was nearly stopped. It was after the ��� �