Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/825

818 FEDERAL REPORTER. �npt to say beyond reason — and since the hearing have given to them that second thought, which is the due of litigants, ■when to the court is submitted a case upon the faots as well as the law; and the conclusion to which I have arrived is that the libellants bave failed to substantiate against the Onmst their charge as set forth in the second and third arti- cles of their libel, and that I must pronounce for the Onmst, as regards those articles. �As regards the fourth article of the libel, relating to the abandonment of the Mary Weaver by the captain of the Onmst, shortly after the collision, but little needs be said in this connection. It was contended by the libellants that, upon the facts and the law, the court would be justified ia regarding the abandonment as a quasi confession of guiltiness of the misdoing charged in articles second and third ; that, as such, it is entitled to a prominent place among the facts put in proof on behalf of the libellants. In this view I cannot oon- cur. The evidence, it cannot be questioned, convicts the captain of the Onmst of unseamanlike and unmanly, not to say inhuman, conduct on this occasion — conduot which, it is to be regretted, is not punishable under some penal stat- ute of the United States; but that, in view of ail the circum- stances in proof, any considerable weight can be accorded it, as a confession or admission of guiltiness in the matter of the collision, is not to be conceded. �An order must be entered dismissing the libel, without costs for either party. ����