the charge, and handed to the court before the jury leave the bar. And the bill must be prepared in form and presented to the judge within two weeks after verdict. 4. Any instructions required by counsel to be given to the jury, shall be presented to the court at the opening of the closing speech. XI. Causes which have been two years on the trial list, and continued by consent or without any preparation for trial by the plaintiff, will be non prossed by the court. XII. PAPER BOOKS. In all law arguments on demurrers, reserved points, special verdicts, motions in arrest of judgment, cases stated for the opinion of the court, exceptions to auditor's and master's reports, and in every other matter entitled to be placed upon the argument list, the party who is entitled to begin and conclude the argument, shall furnish to each of the judges, the reporter and to the opposite counsel, a paper book containing a clear and succinct statement or history of the case, noting particularly the matters in controversy between the parties. The copy furnished to the opposite counsel shall be furnished two weeks before the argument. XIII. PLEADINGS. 1. No dilatory plea shall be received, unless supported by affidavit. 2. When a defendant has pleaded the general issue with leave to give the special matter in evidence or to justify, he shall at least two weeks before trial, give notice of the special facts or matter on which he intends to rely, otherwise he shall be confined strictly to evidence admissible on a general issue plea. 3. On a plea of payment to a bond or specialty, the defendant, at least four weeks before the trial, shall give the plaintiff notice in writing of the matter intended to be objected in avoidance of the same, or else he shall be precluded therefrom. 4. When the defendant pleads a set-off, unless the matter be fully and specially set forth in the plea, or when he intends on the plea of payment to defalk his own account against the plaintiff's demand, or any part of it, he shall give a full and particular notice, in writing, of such intended set-off at least two weeks before the first day of the term for which the same is set down for trial, or he shall not be allowed to give in evidence, under such plea, any set-off, nor under such notice any matter of set-off not therein particularly set forth. XIV. RETURN DAYS. Writs of process shall bear test the day they are issued, and may be made returnable to any return day. The first Monday of every month shall be a return day. XV. RULES. Rules to declare and plead, and for all other pleadings may be entered from four weeks to four weeks in the clerk's office, and on failure to declare or plead or enter other pleadings accordingly, judgments nisi may be entered on motion either in court or before a judge at chambers. [ADOPTED IN BOTH COURTS NOVEMBER 13, 1849.] CASES IN THE THIRD CIRCUIT, &c. UNITED STATES VS. HOLMES. (FUBLICATION DURING TRIAL) (HOMICIDE: SELF-DEFENCE.) Although this Court is deprived, by the Act of 2nd March 1831, of the power to punish, as for a contempt of Court, the publication during trial, of testimony in a case; yet, having power to regulate the admission of persons, and the character of proceedings within its own Bar, the Court can exclude from within the Bar, any person coming there to report testimony during the trial. Seamen have no right, even in cases of extreme peril to their own lives, to sacrifice the lives of passengers, for the sake of preserving their own. On the contrary; being common carriers, and so paid to protect and carry the passengers, the seamen, beyond the number necessary to navigate the boat, in no circumstances, can claim exemption from the common lot of the passengers. In the case here reported, the relative obligations of seamen and passengers, in the event of ship-wreck or maritime disaster, are examined and stated. The indictment charged, that the prisoner did commit manslaughter on the high seas, 1st, by casting F. A. from a vessel belonging &c. whose name was unknown: 2nd, by casting him from the long-boat of the ship W. B. belonging &c. The indictment is sufficiently certain. 1842. The American ship WILLIAM BROWN, left Liver- APRIL SESSIONS, pool on the 13th of March 1841, bound for Philadelphia, in the U. S. She had on board, (besides a heavy cargo,) seventeen of a crew, and sixty-five pasA STATEMENT. 1842. APRIL SESSIONS, Sengers; Scotch and Irish emigrants. About ten o'clock on the night of the 19th of April, when distant two hundred and fifty miles S. E. of Cape Race, New-found-land, the vessel struck an iceberg, and began to fill so rapidly that it was evident she must soon go down. The long-boat and jolly-boat were cleared away and lowered. The Captain, the second mate, seven of the crew, and ONE PASSENGER got into the jolly-boat. The first mate, eight seamen, of whom the prisoner was one, (these nine being THE ENTIRE REMAINDER OF THE CREW, and thirty-two passengers, in all, forty-one persons, got indiscriminately into the long-boat.* THE REMAINDER OF THE PASSENGERS, thirty-one persons, were obliged to remain on board the ship. In an hour and a half from the time when the ship struck, she went down, carrying with her every person who had not escaped to one or the other of the small boats. STATEMENT. Thirty-one PASSENGERS thus perished.† On the following morning, (Tuesday,) the Captain, being about to part company with the long-boat, gave its crew several directions, and, among other counsel, advised them to obey all the orders of the mate, as they would obey his, the Captain's. THIS THE CREW PROMISED THAT THEY WOULD DO. The long-boat was believed to be in general good condition; but she had not been in the water since leaving Liverpool, now thirty-five days; and as soon as she was launched, began to leak. She con The first mate and some of the crew of the long-boat were originally in the jolly-boat with the Captain; but the mate, understanding navigation, was transferred, with a chart, quadrant and compass, to the long-boat; and some of the crew were exchanged. The long-boat was 224 feet long, six feet in the beam, and from 2 to 3 feet deep. + One passenger had died after leaving Liverpool, and before the catastrophe of the nineteenth. 1842. tinued to leak the whole time; but the passengers APRIL SESSIONS, had buckets and tins, and, by baling, were able to reduce the water, so as to make her hold her own. The plug was about an inch and a half in diameter. It came out more than once, and, finally, got lost; but its place was supplied by different expedients. It appeared by the depositions of the Captain, and of the second mate,* (the latter of whom had followed the sea twenty-one years; the former being likewise, well-experienced,) that on Tuesday morning, when the two boats parted company, the longboat and all aboard were in GREAT JEOPARDY. The gunwale was within from five to twelve inches of the water. "From the experience" which they had had, they thought "the long-boat was too unmanageable TO BE SAVED." If she had been what, in marine phrase, is called a leaky boat, she must have gone down. Even without a leak, she would not have supported one half her company, had there been "a moderate blow:" "she would have swamped very quickly:" The people were half naked, and were "all crowded up together, like sheep in a pen." "A very little irregularity in the stowage would have capsized the long-boat." "If she had struck any piece of ice, she would inevitably have gone down. There was great peril of ice for any boat.”— (Captain's and second mate's depositions.) Without going into more detail, the evidence of both these officers went to shew, that loaded as the long-boat was on Tuesday morning, the chances of living *The Captain and second mate, with the other persons in the jolly-boat, after having been out at sea six days, were picked up by a French fishing lugger. They afterwards came to Philadelphia, where, by consent of the United States, the depositions of the Captain and mate were taken, and the testimony was now read in evidence. STATEMENT. |