US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

1. The obligation of a "lookout" on vessels sailing, in crowded waters such as the Bay of New York is of the highest kind. His care must be indefatigable; his vigilance sleepless; and the rigor of the requirement rises according to the power and speed of the vessel on which be is.

2. When strong evidence, in a case of collision, tends to show that the catastrophe was owing to the failure of the lookout of the vessel libeled to attend to his duty, every doubt as to the performance of the duty and the effect of nonperformance should be resolved against the vessel sought to be inculpated until she vindicates herself by testimony conclusive to the contrary.

3.. Although where the circuit and district court both agree on a question of alleged fault in a vessel libeled for collision, this Court will not readily reverse, yet it will do so where, after examination, its conviction is that both the courts below were wrong.

This was an appeal in admiralty from the decree of the Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York; the case being one arising from a collision between the steamer Ariadne and the brig William Edwards, and the questions being purely questions of fact.