The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-05-19
PACIFIC MAIL TO
PAY RIO LOSSES

Claimants against the Pacific Mail
Steamship Company for losses sustain
ed in the wrecking and sinking Of the
steamship Rio Janeiro obtained on May
9 a favorable decision in the United
States Circuit Court of Appeals which
reverses the findings of United States
District Judge John De Haven. The
decision was rendered by Judge Frs
kline M. Ross. The responsibility of
the loss of life in the Rio was placed
upon the Pacific Mail Company. The
matter came up in the case of Clara
Barwick who had entered a claim
against the loss of her husband on the
Inflated liner.
The decision of the court of appeals
is based upon the proposition that all
of the Chinese crew of the Rio could
not speak or understand English and
that the crew, therefore, was made
quate for the exigency that arose.
Hence the company was held respon-
sible for the loss of life that followed
upon the incapacity of the crew to
launch the life boats properly.
The Rio. while attempting, on Febru-
airy %, 1901, to enter the harbor of San
Francisco in a dense fog at half past
5 o'clock in the morning, struck upon a
sunken rock or reef outside the Golden
Gate and sank within twenty minutes.
drowning about 200 persons, mostly
Chinese.
The following extracts are from
Judge Ross decision:
rTJt.- <7r.1
ditions five minutes was ample time
for the lowering of the boats. 1t fur
Their shows that there was no panic
among the passengers or crew, that
the passengers behaved well, and that
the captain Immediately upon the
ships striking the rocks sounded the
alarm and called the crew TO the
boats. Each of the boats was CONF
manded by a white officer and manned
by part of the Chinese crew. Yet
but three of the eleven boats were low
cred into the water, one of which, the
aft-quarter boat No. 10. was lowered
by officer Coghlan and the ships car
penter, and but three of the hundred
and odd passengers that the ship car
ried We're taken into any boat. There
must in the very nature Of things,
have been some paramount, controlling
cause for all this. And that cause, we
think, is very easily to be seen. 1t
was not merely for the reason
that the men depended upon to man
the boats were Chinese. To the com
trary the evidence is that the Chinese
make excellent sailors.
But how about Chinese SAIL
ors or sailors of any other class OF
race who cannot understand the or
ders that become necessary in the
course of their duties because of a
lack of knowledge of the language IN
which they have to be given2 That $
the question we have to consider ana
determine here.
The case shows that the City OF RIO
de Janeiro left the port of Honolulu
on the voyage under consideration WITH
a crew Of eighty-fo Cinnamon, OH
cered by white men. The officers could
not speak the language of the Chinese
and but two of the latter-the boat
swain and chief fren1an-could under
stand that of the officers. Consequent
" the orders of the officers had to be
communicated either through the boat
swain or chief fireman. or by signs and
signals So far as appears that seemed
to have worked well enough on the
voyage in question until the ship came
TO grief and there arose the necessity
for quick and energetic action in the
darkness.