The Weaker Vessel

" Woman is not the 'weaker vessel '; and it is unfair to assume that when wife and husband perish together in a catastrophe, the woman died first." By a bill which has passed the Connecticut Senate and is now before the House, that state proposes to enact into statute the rule of the common law that when a man and a woman die in a common disaster there is no presumption as to which survived the other.

Speculation as to survivorship is not idle, as all the property of both husband and wife may pass to the heirs of one to the exclusion of those of the other, if it is found that the latter died first. Of course, in any case such as, for example, the sinking of the Lusitania, it might be shown by indirect evidence that one predeceased the other--such evidence, for instance, as would show where each was when last seen. A jury can make a finding upon very little, but in many cases of automobile and aeroplane accidents, there is nothing whatever to go on. It would then be the function of the presumption to resolve the doubt, but in most cases in England and America it has been decided that any inference without evidence would be blind.

The Civil Law, from which Louisiana and California have drawn many of their statutes, has an elaborate system of rules designed to solve all difficulties, whether the common disaster involves a man and woman, two men, or two women. They are, in part: (1) the younger is presumed to have survived, unless (2) one is under 15 and the other is under 60, in which case the latter is preferred, or unless (3) both are between the ages of 15 and 60, in which case the jury may find that the man, the " stronger vessel" lived the longer. Louisiana and California have introduced an interesting variation by providing that if both are of the same sex, over 15 and under 60, the older is considered to have survived.