A STRANGE STORY OF THE SEA. THE admiralty division of the High Court of Justice in England seldom rivals, much less excels, its probate and divorce companions, in point of interest and attrac tiveness. But every rule has exceptions, and not long since Mr. Justice Govell Barnes, the puisne admiralty judge, was engaged for nearly a week with a special jury in trying a case of the most romantic and sensational character. In point of form it was a suit for damages of the most ordinary and commonplace kind. The plaintiff, Mr. Henry Smethurst, an alderman of the borough of Grimsby on the English east coast, and a justice of the peace, sued the owners of the trawler " Ibis" for damages on the ground that the skipper of that vessel had run down and sunk his smack, the " Fortuna," on the morning of seventeenth August, 1892, in the North Sea. The defendants (and it was here that the case assumed a startling character) pleaded first that the skipper of the " Ibis " had sunk the "Fortuna" deliberately, and secondly that he had done so by the orders of Mr. Smethurst himself. In order to bring home this charge to Mr. Smethurst, the defendants maintained that he had a motive for the crime which they alleged against him, in asmuch as the " Fortuna " was insured above her value and he was anxious to get the sum covered by the policy. The attempt to prove motive however ludicrously col lapsed. The "Fortuna" was insured for ,6975 in a club of which Mr. Smethurst was a director. She was worth as a game concern from £800 to £1000. The jury were therefore substantially invited to be lieve that a man of unblemished reputation, and in no pecuniary difficulties, conspired to perpetrate an offence of the most abomin able character, which in a certain event might have cost him his life, merely in order to get a sum of money equal to the
value of his ship, and certain to be reduced far below that value (1) by the contribu tion which he himself as a member of the insurance club would have to make to the payment of the £975, and (2) by the bribe (alleged by the defendants to be £120) payable to the accomplice of his infamy. That any man in possession of his senses would be guilty of such a hideous blunder was impossible — and there was no evidence that Mr. Smethurst was insane. The ab sence of anything like a motive for the crime told heavily in the plaintiff's favor. But the defendants made a further attempt to convict Mr. Smethurst of the foul play imputed to him. They confronted him with an alleged confession by the skipper of the "Ibis." This man's name was Harry Rumbell. In the month of November following the loss of the " Fortuna," he murdered his mistress and was tried and condemned at Lincoln Assizes. Shortly before his execu tion he made two statements, one of which was signed by him, accusing Mr. Smethurst of having bribed him to run the " Fortuna" down. There was a battle royal in court as to whether or not these statements were admissible in evidence. Mr. Lockwood, Q.C., for the defendants, urged that they were " declarations against interest," since a claim for damages would lie, in respect of them, against Rumbell's estate. Sir Ed ward Clarke, Q.C., and ex-Solicitor-Gen eral, on the other hand maintained on behalf of Mr. Smethurst that they were not admissible; and Mr. Justice Barnes, without stating his reasons, upheld the objection. The point may probably come before the Court of Appeal. But in the mean time the learned judge's decision is law, and I think good law. These state ments were made in the plaintiff's absence, at a time when Rumbell had nothing to lose, and everything, viz., life, to gain by
