Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/915

BUNGB ». STBAMSHIP DTOPU. 007 �sailg — and they were full and drawing. The sea waa smooth. The master testified that these sails were carried merely to steady the ship, and he thought they gave her no increase of epeed. �The opinion of another witness, a competent expert, was that they would give her, at least, an additional knot and a _ half an hour. �The fog had set in about noon. There was no evidence of any order whatever being given to slacken the speed after the fog set in, and before the bark was sighted. �But the chief engineer was called, and testified that after the fog set in they used coal f rom a particular bunker, which, he says, contained inferior coal, and that the engine was not making the full number of revolutions required for full speed. �But the testimony of this witness, under the circumstances, eeems to me not sufficient to prove the inferiority of the coal to an extent that would so largely reduce the speed of the steamer. The witness is not shown to be an expert in the quality of coal. No other evidence is produced to the fact, although if true it might be produced. And if the engineer thus allowed the speed to run down, or purposely took meas- ures to produce that resuit, he was acting in direct violation of the order from the bridge, which stood at "full speed ahead." Moreover, he testifies to the number of revolutions from mem- ory merely, though he was examined more than five months after the collision, and although he kept a log in which the number of revolutions was noted, which was neither produced nor used to refresh the recollection of the witness at or before his examination. Nor was the assistant engineer, who was on wateh, examined as a witness, �Aside, however, from the evidence given in the case touch- ing this question of speed, there has been, in the course of the trial, such an evident suppression of testimony on the part of the steamer that ail presumptions are on this point against her. �The mate of the steamer was examined before the trial, in New York, in February, 1879. On his direct examination he testified that the speed of the steamer was about eight and ��� �