issue formed upon it, and what from the other, cannot generally, if ever, be ascertained,-any more than can the exact proportion of injury resulting from the respective faults of the parties. The court does not attempt to ascertain it, but infers the amount resulting from each to be equal, and therefore divides it, as it does the damages. The opposite view, urged by counsel for the libelant, would, in my judgment, not only be inequitable but mischievous in other respects. It would tend to encourage unjust claims, by allowing the claimant to experiment at the expense of his antagonist without risk to himself. The libelant may usually know when he is guilty of contributory fault, and doubtless does. If he may deny and conceal his fault, and demand and sue for the damages resulting from it, as well as from the respondent's, with immunity from risk of disadvantage respecting costs, it is not too much, I think, to say that the average libelant will do so.

Nor do I think the alleged rule is any better grounded in authority than in reason. The uniform practice in this district has been against it; and I do not find the practice to have been different elsewhere, unless, indeed, in Massachusetts and New York. Without citing other cases-(Hay v. Le Neve, 2 Shaw, Scotch App. Cas. 395; Foster v. Miranda, 1 Newb. 229; The Monarch, W. Rob. 21; The Rival, 1 Spr. 128; Lennox v. Winisimmet Co. Id. 160; The Favorita, 4 Ben. 134; Vanderbilt v. Reynolds, 16 Blatchf. 80, 81, 86, 90, 91,) -in which this practice has been pursued, it is sufficient to mention The America, 92 U. S. 482, where this question of costs was before the supreme court,-as lately as 1875,-and where all the conditions necessary to the application of the rule here invoked, were present. No cross-libel was filed, nor did the answer or testimony suggest any injury to the respondent's vessel. And yet the supreme court,-(reversing the court below, whose decree awarded full damages and costs,)--finding both parties in fault and awarding half damages, divided the costs. It is true the question is not discussed in the opinion, but the court was called upon to consider it; and the case therefore shows the court's understanding of the practice, and a decision based upon it.

The earlier case of The Sapphire, 18 Wall. 51, decides nothing respecting costs; nor do I understand the general observations of the judge, dropped in passing, to be inconsistent with the practice subsequently followed in The America. The only question before the court was whether its mandate, previously issued, had been obeyed. v.15,no.11-52

This mandate was to divide the damages. Nothing was said respecting the disposition already made of costs. The subsequent observations of the judge on this subject were mere suggestions in justification of the disposition made,-manifestly with no thought of passing on the question, or deciding anything. The circuit court, having determined in the first instance that the respondent alone was in fault, doubtless was still of opinion that he was mainly so, at least, and therefore, probably, allowed its former disposition of costs to remainwhen entering the decree for half damages, as ordered by the mandate. Precisely what is meant by the expression in the opinion, “doubtless they [the costs] generally follow the decree," is uncertain. Is it that the disposition of costs, generally, follows the disposition of damages, -the former being divided between the parties, where the latter are, thus following the principle or rule of the decree? Or is it that full costs are generally awarded a libelant who recovers half damages? It must be further observed that the judge points out a special and controlling circumstance in favor of the disposition there made. "The costs allowed libelant were incurred in his effort to recover what has been proved to be his just demand," says the judge. Certainly, if the costs were all incurred, as is here found, or assumed, in establishing the respondent's fault, and consequent liability to half damages,-(no part in resisting the unjust demand for double this amount,-founded on the false allegation of blamelessness in libelant,)-no other disposition of them could be made. In any view, however, that may be taken of The Sapphire, the force of the decision in The America must remain unimpaired.

I do not find in the case before me any special circumstance calling for a departure from the usual practice. The suggestion that the principal fault was the respondent's; that the libelant's was slight, and virtually unimportant, cannot be accepted. The libelant was guilty of willful disregard of the law, in a matter material to the collision that followed. It was not the case of oversight, imprudence, inadvertence, or other ordinary negligence; but was a deliberate disregard of the statute. No torch was on board; no provision had been made respecting it. As seems to be too common with such vessels, this provision of the law was, doubtless, esteemed unreasonable and unnecessary, and therefore unworthy of regard. In recovering one-half the damages sustained and one-half the costs of ascertaining the controverted facts, the libelant gets all he can justly demand.

THE NETO and Cargo.

(District Court, S. D. Florida. March 2, 1883.).

1. SALVAGE-AMOUNT AWARDED.

Measure of reward in cases of salvage where the peril to the salved vessel was great depends upon the circumstances of the case and the award is in the sound discretion of the court; it is not to be measured positively by the value of the property in peril, yet this may always be taken into account in determining the amount, as the owners are benefited in that proportion, and a small percentage assists in compensating salvors for services that are frequently performed where the property is so small that adequate remuneration cannot be given without a hardship to the owner.

Although each cause is disposed of upon its own merits, the discretion of the court should be guided by general principles, and in applying them should, as far as practicable, where circumstances show a similarity of reasoning and common point of agreement as to amount, consider the precedents of adjudicated cases.

Amounts awarded in cited cases.

In Admiralty.

Jeff. B. Browne, for libelants.

G. Bowne Patterson, for respondents.

LOCKE, J. This steam-ship laden with a valuable cargo of cotton, bound from Galveston to Liverpool, went ashore on Pulaski reef, a small rocky shoal, the most north-easterly of the Tortugas group, the evening of January 30th, and when boarded by the libelants, with two vessels and eighteen men, the next morning, was lying hard ashore on a rough and rocky bottom with the wind and sea pressing her further aground, with 16 feet of water under her bows, 17 under her stern, and from 12 to 14 feet amidship. A ridge of rock with from 12 to 14 feet, extended across at a short distance from her stern, and there was a shoal with 15 feet off her starboard quarter, and another, with about the same depth, a little forward, off the starboard bow. She was drawing before going ashore 18 feet 3 inches. She had struck the reef at about right angles swinging around, and must have surged backward and shoreward until she was in a very dangerous position. The weather was bad, with a strong breeze and high sea, and the libelants were unable to do anything the first day to assist her. She thumped somewhat heavily, and at times the sea broke over her. The next day, the wind and sea having somewhat abated, the libelants carried out a heavy anchor with chain, and an 11-inch hawser into deep water, took one load, 80 bales of cotton, about five miles to

Garden Key, then loaded both their vessels, discharging in all about 200 bales; but finding it necessary to lighten her still more, the master having consulted with libelants, they jettisoned between five and six hundred bales. By heaving constant strains on the windlass, about 3 o'clock the afternoon of the third day, at high tide, the steamer came off.

The position of the vessel, the nature of the bottom where she lay, the force of the wind and sea while she was aground, show her condition to have been one of considerable danger. Every moment she was resting on the bottom was one of unquestioned peril. The master was unable to do anything to relieve her from the bottom. candidly admits that with the wind and sea as they were he could not carry an anchor with his boats, and every ton jettisoned until that had been done would have but served to drive the vessel further up into shoal water, while the shoals on the bow, quarter, and astern rendered it impossible to use her propeller with advantage. She was out of the way of passing steamers, with no assistance nearer than Key West, about 65 miles, and no means of communication.

The wind and sea increased the night and next day after she came off, and I can but believe that had the salvors not rendered the aid at the time they did, she would, by another tide, have been so bilged and broken as to have necessitated an entire discharge of cargo and probably a total loss of the vessel. They rendered the property an especially needed and valuable service. There are though some circumstances connected with it which must prevent the highest rate of salvage compensation, not from any fault of the salvors, but on account of their inability to save to the owners in an undamaged condition the entire property found in peril by them.

The fact that to save the ship it was necessary to jettison five hundred bales of cotton, although detracting nothing from the credit of the libelants for what they did, yet must reduce their compensation from what it might otherwise have been. Had there been a sufficient number of vessels present to save to the owners the amounts which must now be lost in the damage to jettisoned cotton, and salvage on it, providing it is all saved, an extraordinarily large salvage could have been more easily paid than can a comparatively small one under the present circumstances. I do not intend to imply that what was done was not for the best, and that the cotton should not have been jettisoned; on the contrary, I am satisfied that it was only by said jettison the rest was saved, but it was the insufficient number of the salvors which necessitated it. Although the presence and aid of

the salvors I consider to have been indispensable to the rescue of the property, and that they enabled the appliances of the steamer to be used with great advantage, yet the greater part of the actual labor performed was by means of the steam-power.

Under the circumstances what may be considered just and fair salvage or amount to be awarded? It is unnecessary to review the principles of salvage and the grounds, reasons, or theory of its allowance or amount, as they have been so often stated and enlarged upon. Although all courts cite the same rules and decide upon the same principles, there is probably no class of causes in which precedents are examined and compared with less satisfaction than in those of salvage.

The learned judge in The Waterloo, Blatchf. & H. 124, remarks:

"The want of fixed principles of compensation is the source of serious perplexity to courts and of uncertainty to parties in interest. * * * Probably, nowhere can judicial discretion be less intelligently and satisfactorily exercised than in matters of salvage."

Although each cause is disposed of upon its own particular merits, and is referred to the discretion of the court which acts in the matter, this discretion should, as far as possible, be guided and controlled by certain general considerations which have been found to enter into the estimates made by courts; and whenever several causes are found so nearly parallel in their circumstances as to offer a line of precedents, or different circumstances can be so explained as to show a similarity of reasoning and a common point of agreement as to amount, such should be considered in reaching a conclusion, although not, perhaps, necessarily accepted as binding.

Salvage services rendered in different localities are apt to be diverse in their nature-the character of the salvors engaged, the needs of the property assisted, or the probabilities of loss or the arrival of other help; and where causes can be selected from the same district it may not be amiss to accept suggestions and examples which may be drawn from them.

In this, as in all such cases, there seems to be a wide difference of opinion as to the value of the services rendered, or rather the amount that should be given for them; and it may be permissible in this connection to examine a few cases found in the records of this court, which, if not parallel in all respects, yet are sufficiently similar to assist somewhat in determining the question presented here.

In December, 1848, the steamer Anglo-Saxon was found badly ashore in an exposed condition near Cape Florida. The salvors with