Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/352

THE M. S. BAOON V. EEIE & WESTERN TBANSP. 00. 845 �affreightment, is accountable for any breach of an obligation imputed by it. The Hyperion, 7 Am. L. Eev. 457. �Was the vessel here subjected to unwarrantable delay in diseharging her cargo ? This is the decisive question in the case. �On the twentieth of Oetober, 1876, the respondent shipped in the libellant vessel, at Chicago, a cargo of corn, consigned to itself at Erie, Pennsylvania. The vessel reached Erie on the twenty-sixth of Oetober, and her master promptly re- ported to the respondent's agent, and was told that "we would unload him as soon as it came his turn ; that there were four vessels ahead of him." The respondent bas the control and possession of the only two elevators at Erie, and, as soon as the vessels arriving before the Bacon were unladen, the dis- charge of her cargo was commenced, viz., Oetober 30th, about 2 o'clock p. m., and was finished in the forenoon of the 31 st. The libellant claims damages for four days' alleged improper detention. �That it was the right of the respondent torequire the cargo of the vessel to be unloaded at the Erie elevators is unques- tionable, and that the facility and dispatch of such method of discharge were advantageous to the vessel, is obvious. If other vessels, with the same consignment, arrived in port before her, and were awaiting the discharge of their cargoes, she was entitled to a berth at the elevators only in her turn, and her necessary detention for a reasonable time, under these circumstances, is not imputable to the respondent as a wrong. This is the resuit of the proofs as to the prevailing custom at the ports on the lakes, and especially at the port of Erie, and of accepted decisions by English and American courts. �Upon this point the master of the Bacon testifies : "I don't know that it is the custom at ail the lake ports for the first vessel at the elevators to be unloaded first. Of course, the first vessel at the elevator is unloaded first." �William Christie, another witness for the libellant, is more explicit: "It is customary for vessels loaded with grain to wait their turn to unload, in the order of their arrivai at the ����