Passage Brokers and their Runners licensed. Survey and Certificate of Pas senger Steamers. bond for 2000l. to Her Majesty, conditioned for the due performance of all duties required of them under the Act;' the vessel must have been surveyed before shipping her cargo, and in respect of construction, berths, conveniences, ventilation, light, and the number of boats, reported sea-worthy;' she must have been inspected with a view to the number of passengers, the efficiency of her crew, the quantity and quality of the provisions and water, medicines and medical comforts, calculated for the length of the voyage, by a rule provided under the statute, the description of her ballast, and the description and quantity, as well as stowage, of her cargo,' and approved therein; and the officer must have been satisfied that in respect of carrying a duly qualified medical practitioner, interpreters, passengers' stewards and cooks, the vessel had complied with the statute. The master also must have delivered the list of passengers in duplicate, one of which is to be redelivered to him in order that he may fill in all events by which their number is either increased or diminished during the voyage, and deliver the same to the proper officer at the port of destination.' 3 To provide if possible against the devices and deception heretofore practised on emigrants by designing and needy men, it is enacted that no one shall act as a passage broker without a licence, or as an emigrant runner without wearing his badge in public view after being duly licensed and registered, and that each passage broker shall periodically keep the emigration. officer duly informed of the agents and runners whom he is to employ, shall display their names obviously and legibly in his office, and shall employ no others. 8 The Merchant Shipping Act provides for the survey of all British passenger steamers, and the issue of certificates by the Board of Trade, stating that the Fourth Part of that statute has been complied with, and also length of voyage and number 1 18 & 19 Vict. c. 119, § 63, 64. 4 Steel v. Schomberg, 24 L. J. (Q. B.) stating the restrictions as to of passengers under which 5 18 & 19 Vict. c. 119, § 29. See 17 & 18 Vict. c. 104, § 329. 6 18 & 19 Vict. c. 119, § 38, 69, 40, 41, 42. 7 Ibid. § 16, 17. See § 100. 8 Ibid. § 66-70, 75-81. the particular ship, in accordance with the surveyors' report, may ply.' To prevent over-crowding of steamers, chiefly plying on the rivers of the United Kingdom, although there is nothing to limit the provision, any person who persists in attempting to go on board after being refused admission on account of the vessel being full, or refuses, on being requested for the like reason, to come ashore, incurs a penalty, if his fare has been previously returned or tendered him; and any one who knowingly and wilfully attempts to avoid payment of the due fare, or knowingly and wilfully refuses or neglects to quit the steamer at the point to which he has paid his fare, incurs a penalty. If such person after committing any of the said offences refuses to give his name and address, or gives a false name or address, he incurs a penalty.' The master may refuse to receive, or may put ashore at any convenient place, any person in such a state of intoxication or otherwise, or so misconducting himself, as to cause annoyance to other passengers on board, and that without returning or tendering any fare paid by him.* Crowding, or sons, on river improper PerSteamers. NEGLIGENCE. For injury suffered by the passenger from the negligence of DAMAGE BY the owners or their servants on board, the owners are answerable. If it is due to the negligence of another ship, the owners thereof are liable, notwithstanding there was negligence also on board the passenger ship, provided the accident could have been avoided with ordinary care by the other. But if both vessels have by negligence contributed to the accident, it is held that the passenger has no right of action against the other ship, his remedy being confined to the owner of that in which he was being carried at the time. To such an action by 1 17 & 18 Vict. c. 104, § 303-312, 318, 319. 2 Ibid. § 322, 323. 3 Ibid. § 324. 4 Ibid. § 325. • Skinner v. London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway Co., 5 Exch. 787; Carpue v. Id. 5 Q. B. 747; Malton v. Nesbit, 1 C. & P. 70, and see there as to the evidence which may be adduced 6 Davies v. Mann, 10 M. & W. 546; 7 Thorogood v. Bryan, 8 C. B. 115; but per Williams, J., the authority of that case appears to be shaken, Tuff v. Warman, 26 L. J. (C. B.) 263, 265; see 1 Smith's L. C. 220. an infant, who requires another to take care of him, the negligence of that other is a good plea in bar, it being a term of the carrier's contract with the infant, that the latter shall be in the keeping of some one fit for that purpose during the passage.' The limit set to the responsibility of the owners by statute has been considered in a previous chapter." 1 Waite v. The North Eastern Railway Co. 27 L. J. (Q. B.) 417; (in error) 28 L. J. (Q. B.) 258. 2 Ante, c. iii. p. 109. BY CHARTER- AFFREIGHTMENT by charter-party,' of which it is here AFFREIGHTMENT intended to treat, is a contract in writing by which an entire ship, or some principal part thereof, is let for the specified purposes of the charterer, during a specified term, or for a specified voyage, in consideration of a certain sum of money per ton, or per month, or both, or for the whole period or adventure described. A useful, though by no means perfect distribution of contracts of this nature, distinguishes the three following classes: -1. Locatio navis-being a contract whereby the ship fully equipped, but not manned, is let to hire, or to freight; 2. Locatio operis vehendarum mercium,-being a contract for the carriage and delivery of the charterer's goods; 3. Locatio navis et operarum magistri-being a contract whereby the ship fully equipped and manned is let to hire. or to freight. 1 The term charter-party is generally understood to be a corruption of the Latin words charta partita, and to have originated in the custom of England and Acquitaine to write a duplicate of the same instrument on one piece of parchment, which was afterwards di vided by a straight line cut through Classification of WHEN IT AMOUNTS TO A Legal consequences of such Ownership. Such Ownership dependent upon Intention. This distribution, though comprehensive, is far from perfect, and the distinction on which it proceeds is of no value on the question of temporary ownership under the charter-party. In the law of insurance, as touching barratry, it is otherwise;' and the use which a learned writer upon that law has made of this classification is fully justified by the difference.' By the general law of shipping, as distinguished from the law of marine insurance, possession of the vessel as owner is accompanied with rights and liabilities of great importance. The common law right to detain goods for the payment of freight is dependent on this possession of the ship, as giving that possession of the goods, without which there is no lien.3 Reciprocal with this lien is that responsibility, in virtue of which the freighter's action lies for non-delivery of the cargo. But liability for the supply of necessaries on the order of the master is a nicer question, capable of being complicated and varied by contract and by circumstances, and does not necessarily follow possession of the ship.* The Courts of law are, therefore, careful that a circumstance attended with consequences of so much importance to the shipper, as well as the owner and the charterer, shall not be determined by the effect, strictly taken, of merely technical phraseology, the use of which in commercial instruments is too often the result of accident, or sheer ignorance. It is now regarded as a question about the intention of the parties to the contract, whether or not possession is thereby transferred to the charterer; and upon this, the whole of the instrument, considered together, and fairly interpreted, is the legitimate evidence submitted to the Court.' That was not always the rule, however. There has been vacillation in the Courts, and, in consequence, a conflict of decisions, that renders it the more necessary to observe what rule on this question is from time to time in the ascendant." The following cases are, 1 Per Parke, J., in Christie v. Lewis, 2 B. & B. 410. 2 Arnould, Insur. 857, 858. 3 Per Gibbs, C. J., in Hutton v. Bragg, 7 Taunt. 14; Small v. Moates, 9 Bing. 579. Brodie v. Howard, 17 C. B. 109; Mitcheson v. Oliver, 5 E. & B. 419. 5 Christie v. Lewis, 2 B. & B. 410; Dean v. Hogg. 10 Bing. 345; Yates v. Railston, 8 Taunt. 293; Tate v. Meek, 8 id. 280; Belcher v. Capper, 4 M. & Gr. 502. See the observations of Tindal, C. J., |