Hartman

This is an action to recover for personal injuries alleged to have been suffered by plaintiff while in defendant’s employment, through the negligence of those for whom it is claimed defendant is responsible. A jury was waived, and the action tried to the court.

*569 Plaintiff at the time of the injury was employed as a barber on the Shiuyo Maru, one of defendant’s liners plying between Japanese and American ports, the vessel being on the particular occasion in the port of Nagasaki. At that port, where conditions are such that steamers do not lay at the bund or wharf, but out in midstream, defendant had a contract with Holme, Ringer & Co., a steamship agency, part of whose business was the operation of launches for the transportation of passengers and crews of vessels to and from the shore, to perform such service on their behalf, and this was the exclusive means afforded for the purpose.

On the (lay of the accident, plaintiff had been ashore on leave, for purposes of his own, and in due time was returning to the vessel; when he reached the bund he found that a large launch usually employed in the transportation was absent on other work, and he was taken out to the steamer on a…