STEWARDS. 407 



Sculling Eaces between professional watermen it is tlie 

 custom for the competitors to start themselves, but if either 

 should make default in starting, and any question should 

 in consequence arise, it would be in the power of the 

 Referee to determine that question. The plaintiff and 

 Kelley attempted, unsuccessfully, to start, and Kelley rowed 

 to the Eeferee, who ordered him to tell the plaintiff that if 

 he would not start Kelley must start without him. Kelley 

 rowed over the course without the plaintiff, and the Referee 

 awarded the Race and Stakes to him, without hearing any 

 evidence or taking any steps to ascertain if his order had 

 been communicated to the plaintiff, and without having 

 any means of acquiring the knowledge of the fact. The 

 plaintiff brought an action to recover his deposit. The 

 Jmy found that the order of the Referee was not com- 

 municated to him, and that he had not a fair opportunity 

 of starting. It was held by the Exchequer Chamber, 

 affirming the judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench, 

 that the jurisdiction of the Referee never attached, and 

 therefore his decision was not final, and the plaintiff was 

 entitled to recover. And Kelly, C. B., said, " In giving 

 judgment in the present case, the Court has no desire to 

 cast the slightest doubt upon the principle that whenever 

 a Referee, Arbitrator or Umpire has given a decision upon 

 a question within his jurisdiction, a Court of Law has no 

 power to interfere. And if the Referee in the case now 

 before us, having the materials before him, had pronounced 

 a decision, it would not have been within the province of 

 any Judge or any Jury to overrule it. But on examining 

 the facts of the case it will appear that the Referee had no 

 jurisdiction, his jurisdiction was to be founded upon the 

 performance of a condition which he himself prescribed, 

 and that condition never was performed. Kelley was to 

 tell the plaintiff that if he did not start, Kelley was to 

 start without him. The Referee thereby imposed a specific 

 condition, upon the fulfilment of which, but not otherwise, 

 the start might take place. If the plaintiff, on receiving 

 the message from the Referee, had refused or forborne to 

 start, and Kelley had started, the condition imposed by the 

 Referee would have been so far complied with as to give 

 him jm-isdiction to determine that a start had taken place. 

 But we must assume that the message from the Referee 

 was never communicated by Kelley to the plaintiff, who 

 therefore had no means of knowing that he was to start at 

 the time at which Kelley started. Therefore the start, 



