This difficulty does not stop with the Adjusters, Bench and Bar have sometimes to deal with "cases of first impression;" and to acknowledge that by-ways and field paths have yet to be made before every new or isolated case may be reached, and justice be done therein. The occasion for hesitancy at times, has been candidly avowed by high authority. Justice Denman, in a recent canse,* expressed himself in the following distinct and rather remarkable words :-"Now-a-days, no Judge can feel very confident on a point of law; so many decisions are reversed, that perhaps the more confident any one feels, the more he ought to distrust himself." Speaking of what may be called new law made during the period we are reviewing, it may be said, that its tendency is to give consistency to practice; and to bridge over the gap that separates English law and custom from the codes and customs of other European countries and of the United States. To have a collection of laws relating to General Average consented to by all Maritime Nations is very desirable, but it remains an object unattained as yet. Ships are cosmopolitan in their occupation, carrying cargoes of merchandise to "all ports and places," in every country which possesses a coast; and often having occasion to adjust, in any port of discharge, and collect the contributions of the joint adventurers in the voyage, wherever the termination of that voyage may be. It is very inconvenient for a shipmaster, and those whose interests he represents at a * Holland & Co. v. Veuve Pommery et fils, Nisi Prius, 18th May, 1881. foreign port, to find himself under a code or custom unknown to him, the action of which, however, affects his owners and, possibly, their underwriters. The changes in our own customs, often slow, and sometimes imperceptible in their advance; new and more definite decisions, and occasional reversals of law; these together with fresh subject-matter coming under insurance; new modes of insuring, new methods of water-carriage, and novel dangers in navigation,-these are the incidents which in the course of a few years render text and hand-books antiquated, and call, from time to time, for new editions. The production of such recensions is an expensive but a necessary labour. C. C. Cotton remarks, that during the French Revolution the Bust-makers lost money. The rise and fall of its celebrities was so rapid, that before a plaster cast was dry, the hero's head had fallen under the knife of the guillotine, and the bust had to be thrown aside. Similar, but not quite so sudden are the changes a writer has to observe and record; and the fact of this volume having been out of print for a considerable time renders a re-issue more desirable. A good deal of new matter has been, of necessity, added to the text; and some appendices found in the previous edition are now omitted, it being the writer's desire not greatly to increase the bulk of the volume, but still to entitle his Enchiridion to the name first assumed, a Handbook to the subject of which it treats, and it is hoped, a useful one. A condensed account will be found in these pages, gathered from the Abstract of Sea Casualties returned to the Board of Trade, of the losses, collisions and minor disasters of British and Foreign Shipping, during the twelve months ending on the 30th of June, 1882. These statistics will show the gigantic proportions of commerce. in the nineteenth century committed to fortune on the Ocean, together with its share of destruction and sinister accidents. LONDON, April, 1884. |