Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/549

S43 7EDEBAL BEFOBTBB. �no gun fired, no whistle blown, no shouting heard, until after the launch had started. It can hardly be seriously con- tended, therefore, that any suffioient notice was given. �The càptain and crew of the sehooner state that they had no information or knowledge whatever with regard to any general expectation that there would be a launch that after- noon, and that they saw nothing until too late to put them on tbeir guard, and the captain says he went about because he had run on that tack as far as he thought best to go, and that, although he could have gone further, he thought it more prudent in that part of the harbor not to do so. �It is to be remembered that the respondent's ship-yard is not an isolated object on the shore, but it is surrounded by large manufacturing establishments, many of which are conspicuous objects, and, with the noise of their machinery, quite as likely to attract attention as a ship-yard. �When it is considered how slight a precaution would hava entirely prevented ail risk of such a disaster as the one which bas given rise to this litigation, the neglect becomes more and more manifest. A simple tug-boat, the very one then lying idle at the ship-yard wharf, if stationed out in the stream just before the preparations for launching were com- pleted, could have given positive notice and warning to every passing vessel not to go into the danger. �And no matter how many tugs it might require, or what other means might have to be adopted, it is clearly law and common justice that before a man can do so destructive and unlooked for an act as to launch a vessel out into a frequented fair-way, when confessedly he bas no control whatever over her after she once starts from the ways, and cannot tell with certainty at what moment she is going to start, or what de- fleotion from her expected course she may take, he is bound at bis peril to see that every person is warned who otherwise might innocently, and without gross carelessness^ suffer in- jury. �The building of ships is an enterprise worthy every encour- agement; it calls into exercise the highest meehanical skilL ����