Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/328

 316 FEDERAL REPOSTEB. �freight from port to port, but the peculiar maritime services of this vessel must be taken in consideration in determining the law in reference to the completion of a voyage before wages are due. �The Bchooner Edwin Post was what is termed a wrecking vessel, whose business was giving assistance to vessels in dis- tress, and the performance of general salvage services, etc. She could in no proper sense be said to be making a voyage from port to port, for the scene of her operations was alto- gether local, her headquarters being the breakwater, at the entrance of the Delaware bay. She was not engaged, as a usual thing, in carrying freight from port to port. �The court thinks the fair and reasonable construction of the shipping articles is that they constitute an agreement to give employment for the period of six months, at the rate respectively agreed upon between the master and seaman; and, while the master had the right to expect their services for that period of time, they were also entitled, in case of accident or improper discharge by the master, to have a pro rata share of their wages earned by them during their actual stay on the vessel and in his employ, There is no dispute about the time they were in the vessel, and that the fuil six months' wages were earned. But it is contended that, as there was in the shipping articles a provision, or rather an intimation, that the vessel was to corne "back to Philadel- phia" after the work was done, that her arrivai at Philadel- phia was a condition precedent to the right to have wages paid. �The court cannot take this view of the case. As before said, the getting back to Philadelphia was no essential por- tion of the work for which these men were employed. Its mention was a mere incident, and we think it was not intended that fact should determine the earning of wages in whole or in part. Any other construction would have put it in the power of the master to have kept these seamen for an indefinite length of time, and postponed the payment of their wages to the actual arrivai of the vessel at the port of Phila* ��� �