lines of closely printed conditions and exceptions, and there appears to be no duty imposed on the fortunate shipowner but that of receiving the freight. This great commercial change seems to justify new works on commercial law, as compared with new editions of the old works whose value no one will question, but which were compiled under a different state of business relations. Re-editing, to satisfactorily adapt such works to modern commerce, must almost be re-writing. Cases such as Sewell v. Burdick, or Jackson v. The Union Marine Insurance Co., cannot, without a great want of proportion, be relegated to footnotes, and commercial practice has rendered obsolete much of the old learning. It is of very little use to set out the "ordinary authority of a master" as founded on cases before 1860, when in 1886 the master's functions in port have been reduced almost to the vanishing point. In the following pages I have therefore endeavoured to combine the statement of the law with an account of the commercial practice of to-day, and I have not scrupled to omit old authorities which have become by change of time obsolete while I have set out what the law is in the absence of express agreement, I have also added to it the clauses in an ordinary bill of lading of the present day which supersede or modify it. 1, ESSEX COURT, TEMPLE. October 25, 1886. T. E. S. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. DURING the three years and a half which have passed since this book was published nearly a hundred cases affecting its contents have been reported. These have been noted in their appropriate places, and, where necessary, the text has been re-written: the whole work has been thoroughly revised. The most important additions to shipping law since 1886 are the discussion of the nature of excepted perils in the contract of affreightment, especially perils of the sea, contained in the judgments of the House of Lords in The Xantho and Hamilton v. Pandorf (12 App. Ca.); and the theory of the relation of a bill of lading given to a charterer to the charter, involved in the dicta of Lord Esher in Rodocanachi v. Milburn (18 Q. B. D.), and Leduc v. Ward (20 Q. B. D.) These have been carefully considered. 1, ESSEX COURT, Temple. March 31, 1890. T. E. S. PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. BETWEEN Seventy and eighty shipping cases have been The new United States Statute, following the Montana decision of the Supreme Court, and declaring the negligence clause null and void, which came into force on July 1, 1893, has been printed with a short commentary as Appendix V., and demands the careful attention of all shipowners. I am indebted to my friends Mr. C. J. B. Hurst, of the Middle Temple, and Mr. E. T. Lawes, of Lincoln's Inn, for T. E. S. |