while receiving or discharging marble. Water, especially salt-water, will create stains, and if water enters packages, the nails will rust, the straw become rotten, and the contents rendered valueless. Oak and mahogany shavings when wet greatly discolour marbles. Masters have been cautioned against signing bills of lading at Leghorn, otherwise than "to be re-measured at port of discharge, and freight paid accordingly." Masters may lose eight or ten cent. freight,

unless they use this or some other means of security. A master asks the Gazette, 10th February, 1866: "I chartered my vessel at Leghorn to take cargo of general goods, including a certain quantity of marble, in blocks, for Bristol. The stevedore employed was furnished compulsorily by my merchant, and was considered a proper and competent person, and was paid by me, but at the risk of the ship when loaded. I obtained from him a certificate that the cargo was stowed in a proper manner, according to the custom of the port. On discharging at Bristol, it is found that two scantlings of marble are broken, and the consignee insists on deducting £10 12s. from my freight, alleging that the breakage was through improper stowage. The blocks when shipped appeared in good order and condition; but further than that I know nothing." The Editor answers: "If the stowage was expressly reserved to be at the "risk of the ship," and the master took "no further trouble about the stowing of the cargo than to know nothing further about it," than that "it appeared to be in good order and condition when shipped," the ship is liable if the breakage turns out to have accrued from bad stowage. The mere employment of the shipper's stevedore does not necessarily exonerate the ship from the consequence of bad stowage.

1080. Emery Stone. Nisi Prius, 26th April, 1861. LEVANT MINERAL Co. v. SHEERS. An action to recover £120. Plaintiffs shipped at Smyrna 107 tons emery on board the Allegro, which was put on the bottom; on it defendant placed some loose boards for the reception of a quantity of cases of liquorice paste, which having become heated, melted and flowed down between the boards upon the stone. On arrival in London, 40 tons appeared to have been considerably damaged, and was sold at a loss of £3 ton. Experiments were tried by hot-water and burning, but not with perfect success. Defendant contended that the £30 paid in was all for which he was liable, because the damage might have been reduced by saturation. It was admitted that plaintiffs were entitled to recover the actual damage sustained. Witnesses for defendant stated that by immersing the stone in cold water for short periods, in some cases half-an-hour only, the liquorice completely disappeared, and

that this process might be carried on at an expense of 5s. P ton. During the trial a piece of stone covered with liquorice, and produced by the plaintiffs, was placed in a pail of water in the court, and upon its being taken out two hours afterwards, the stone was almost clean, without scrubbing or friction. Damages £50 above the amount £30, paid into court.

1081. Slate is as brittle as earthenware and requires equal care; it should never be shipped in wet weather; slate ought to be stowed on its edges and kept in that position; when flat it will be very liable to break. It must be stowed athwart and not fore and aft, otherwise when the ship pitches, great destruction must ensue, beside which if stowed fore and aft, and the slate settles wedge fashion, the ship's sides must strain. With general cargo, slate should be stowed on as level a surface as possible, which with coal or ballast can be easily arranged. The ground tier with edges down, and fore and aft, right athwart the hold, the longers carried fore and aft to the extent required for containing the quantity to be shipped, care being taken to keep the edges level. The next riding tier should be on their flat, and so on alternately; the flat tiers should be as shallow as is consistent with the strength required to resist the weight of the overlying tiers, without breaking; the object for stowing a flat tier alternately is to prevent the upper from wedging themselves down by the working of the ship, among the lower tiers, by which they would be broken. Some use only thin plank or strips of wood for a flat tier. Stowed carefully this way, straw, which is frequently used, is not required. At Calcutta, on opening the hatches of a ship from England, her hold was discovered to be full of a dense steam, the heat from which compelled the crew to retire for some time. Part of her cargo consisted of slate packed with straw, so wet originally that there is little doubt the ship would have been destroyed had the weather detained her longer at sea. Slates will not bear heavy cargo on them. Flooring slates (slabs) are stowed on their edges. For the Australian colonies and America, slates should be packed in boxes containing, say ten dozen in each, and large slabs should be enclosed in rough wooden cases, to preserve the corners and edges. Little else but sized (squared) slate is ever exported from the West of England-a cargo of scantlings being very rare. Quan tities are sent thence to France and Germany; scarcely any to America. 21 tons of slate occupy a space of 567 cubic feet, or twothirds of a keel. On the Crinan Canal, 800 slates sizeable, go for a ton. A superficial foot of slate slab, one inch thick, weighs 14 lbs.

As an allowance of 60 slates over in every thousand, and one cwt. in every ton, is made at Bangor, to cover breakage at the time of shipment, the purchaser never paying for any excess he may receive beyond the quantity invoiced, viz., 1,200 to the thousand, and 20 cwt. to the ton, no abatement or further allowance is made for any deficiency or breakage that may occur in shipment or otherwise. Shipping 10d. ton, slabs 18. 4d.

WEIGHT AND SIZES OF DELABOLE SLATES.

100 feet of 14-inch flooring weigh about one ton. An allowance being made at the time of shipment to cover the ordinary breakage, no further allowance will be made for any deficiency; and the slate when shipped is at the risk of the purchaser. Shipping charges 9d. ton, slabs 1s. The weight of slate from the great South Devon Quarries, near Ivybridge, is between that of the Delabole and Bangor, not being so heavy as the Delabole slate.

1082. STOPPAGE IN TRANSITU. This expression means that the unpaid seller or the consignee of goods has a right on the bankruptcy or insolvency, or approaching bankruptcy or insolvency of the purchaser or consignee, to countermand, before or on arrival at the place of destination, delivery of these goods to that purchaser or consignee. Into the general principles on which right is founded, and to the many questions which may arise out of the exercise of it, the shipowner or shipmaster does not require to enter. The master is merely a common carrier; and by his bill of lading he has undertaken to deliver the goods to the person named in it, or his assigns, that is, to the party to whom he has legally transferred his rights under it; or the bill of lading is taken for delivery to the order of the shipper, himself, or to or order, or assigns; and in these cases the master can only deliver to the party to whom the shipper has duly endorsed the bill of lading, or who holds it from the shipper with a blank endorsement.

1083. When the ship, on board which the goods are, has to perform quarantine before entering her port of destination, and the goods have to be purified before being admitted-the transitus continues until quarantine be performed; and, therefore, during the performance of it, the seller is in time to stop, and this right will not be defeated by any act done by the buyer during that time. When the ship has arrived at her port of destination, and complete delivery of part of an entire cargo or parcel of goods is made to the consignee, without any intention on the consignor's part to retain the rest, this is held to be a complete delivery of the whole, so as to terminate the transitus. As, where a cargo of wheat was shipped and bills of lading taken, deliverable to the buyers, and a bill drawn and accepted for the whole, and the buyers sold the wheat to a third party, and, on the ship's arrival, the cargo was entered at the customhouse in the name of his agents, who took out 800 bushels on his account; but, on the failure of the first buyers, the original sellers gave notice to the master to stop delivery:-it was held, however, that the transitus was ended, by the delivery of the 800 bushels, which must be taken to be a delivery of the whole, no intention appearing, either previous to, or at the time of the delivery, to separate part of the cargo from the rest.

1084. Shipowners, masters, and brokers are oftentimes perplexed to decide as to whom goods are deliverable under bills of lading. The practice which now prevails, of making two sets, renders it easy to present a second endorsed document for the delivery of one shipment. The reason for having two sets of bills of lading must be

apparent to all acquainted with mercantile affairs; by the duplicate copies the cargo can be re-assigned to another firm at the port of discharge, by way of stoppage in transitu. Thus, if a manufacturer agrees to sell goods to a merchant, and ships off the consignment, forwarding the bill of lading in due course, and subsequent to shipment, discovers that the buyer is a swindler or insolvent, he can by the extra copies of the papers referred to, post off the endorsed bill of lading to another house, and by this means claim the cargo at destination. Agents and shipowners are, therefore beset and threatened with legal proceedings by both parties to the bill of lading. Withholding lawful delivery of merchandise is accompanied with evils, as actions for compensation are taken, and a ship is often detained pending the settlement. In a foreign port, where a master is told that his ship will be arrested and held to bail for non-delivery by two claimants, he is afraid to act. It is true, by giving up the goods, he may be paid the carriage thereon; still, if he is served with processes on both sides, the danger is not lessened of having to answer suits for loss of markets, depreciation in values, or other similar claims. The original consignees and holders of first bills of lading ought to be the parties to whom the goods should be delivered; but the consignor by entering a protest, and serving the master with sufficient notice, frequently causes goods to be stopped, as before mentioned, or handed over to a second person. The ship is therefore made an intermediary in these affairs, much to the annoyance, and at times the expense of the shipowner. We have given instances, on a former occasion, wherein second sets of bills of lading were made for fraudulent purposes; and the records of our criminal courts have revealed the fact of cargoes being sold a second or third time. The presentation of two separate copies of bills of lading for the delivery of goods is of ordinary occurrence, but each case has some distinguishing feature.

1085. The action tried before Mr. COOKSON in the Supreme Consular Court at Constantinople, the details of which were reported in our columns a few days ago, will serve as a sample of the difficulties surrounding a shipowner or master, when more than one claimant applies for the same goods, and each having strong grounds for demanding possession. The case may be summarised as an illustration of stoppage in transitu. Messrs. MEYER and BUNGE, of Amsterdam, entered into a contract to sell the Messrs. SELIAN FRERES, of Marseilles, 500 barrels of sugar, and these were shipped on board the British steamer Diana, for London, for transhipment per Montezuma (s.s.) to Constantinople. SELIAN and Co. obtained an advance