Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/132

 120 FBDBBAL REPORTER. �Deadt, D. J. The libellants, J. A. Brown and W. T. Me- Cabe, bring this suit as stevedores against the ship Canada to recover $1,007.10. It appears from the libel that the Canada is an American vessel, owned in New York; that she reached this port on March 4, 1881, from the former place, with a cargo of railway iron weighing 1,581 tons, to be de- livered here ; that the libellants were employed at this port by the master to diseharge the cargo for a compensation of 60 cents a ton, and performed said contract prior to March 21st, for which they are entitled to the sum of $948.60; that in performing said contract they expended and paid ont $58.50, in docking said vessel and otherwise fitting her for discharge; and that there is due them for such services and expenditures the sum of $1,007.10, which sum is a lien upon said vessel. To this libel Effingham B. Sutton and others, claimants of the vessel as mortgagees, — ^in possession under a mortgage from the owners, George and Jabez Howes, — except, and allege that the facts stated therein do not give the libellants a lien upon the vessel, �Sinee the commencment of this suit — April 6, 1881 — the Canada has been sold upon an interlocutory decree, made in the suit of Thomas P. Neill and others for wages, eommenced March 9, 1881, for the sum of $26,000, but the proceeds are not sufBcient, after paying the claims against her which are admitted and have precedence over the claim of the mort- gagees, to-wit, wages, bottomry bond, and towage and pilot- age, to satisfy the same. �If the case was one of first impression I should have no hesitation in holding that the contract and service of the libellants was a maritime one, and therefore that their claim is privileged and a lien on the vessel. It falls exactly within the definition of such a contract as given by the late learned and accurate admiralty judge of the district of Maine : "By the general maritime law, every contract of the master, within the scope of bis authority as master, binds the vessel and gives the crediter a lien upon it for his security." The Paragon, Ware, 323. �When this service was performed for the Canada, she was, ��� �