10. Instances of Salvage Services.—
Where a fishing schooner on the Atlantic picked up a floating body on which was a wallet containing a considerable sum of money and promptly delivered the treasure to the court, they were awarded one-half the amount, to be apportioned one-third to the owners of the fishing vessel, one-third to the master and one-third to the crew; the master's share was made somewhat larger because he had resisted the proposal of some of the crew to merely divide the coin and say nothing. The balance was turned over to the public administrator of Massachusetts to hold for the benefit of the unknown heirs, and, if they failed to appear, for further disposition according to law (Gardner v. Gold coins, 111 Fed. 552). The Egyptian obelisk, now in London and known as "Cleopatra's Needle," became the subject of salvage services in the Bay of Biscay, during its voyage from Alexandria and the award was two thousand pounds (see Dixon v. Whitworth, 4 Asp. M. L. C. 138, 327). In the Jefferson, 215 U. S. 130, the vessel was in a drydock and threatened by a conflagration on adjoining property; tugs stood by and played streams from their hose upon her until the danger was past. The court overruled the argument that the service could not be salvage because the vessel was not afloat and directed an award. Where, however, a steamer had been swept high and dry on the shore about a hundred feet above high-water mark and lay there five years, the court declined to consider as salvage the plan and work of floating her by dredging out a basin and canal for her flotation; she had ceased to be engaged in commerce and navigation and the contract was not maritime (Skinner, 248 Fed. 818). The doctrine of this case will probably not be extended beyond its own facts. In the Burlington, 73 Fed. 258, where the ship had been stranded to put out a fire and lay as a menace to navigation while the owner and underwriters were in dispute as to his right to abandon, and the salvor brought her safely into port, he was awarded the entire value as salvage; while in Murphy v. Dunham, 38 Fed. 503, where the salvor proceeded on the erroneous idea that the cargo-owner's title is extinguished when his property sinks, and salved it for his own use, he was only allowed his expenses and narrowly escaped being assessed for the full value. The Albany, 44 Fed. 431, is another instance of the persistence of the old notion that title is acquired by finding property lost at sea; the ship had stranded and the master was jettisoning a valuable cargo of package freight; the countryside swarmed with wagons and lighters to appropriate what could be obtained. The Court held the parties as for embezzlement and said there was a medieval flavor about their conduct which recalled to a student of maritime law the customs of the ancient Gauls, who not only appropriated the cargoes of vessels wrecked on their coasts but sold their crews into slavery or sacrificed them to their gods. The Court quoted the following succinct statement of the nature of salvage from Mr. Justice Story:
In cases of salvage, the party founds himself upon a meritorious service, and upon an implied understanding that he brings before the court, for its final award, all the property saved, with entire good faith, and he asks a compensation for the restitution of it uninjured and unembezzled by him. The merit is not in saving the property alone, but it is in saving and restoring it to the owners. However meritorious the act of saving may have been, if the property is subsequently lost, and never reaches the owner, no compensation can be claimed or decreed.