The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-12-18 00:00:00

THE LOSS OF THE " DEUTSCHLAND,"

One of the passengers by the Deutschland thus narrates
the story of the wreck and suff.A.,gs of the crew and pas-
sengers, in a letter to the Weber Zeitung

,
"We were safely landed here at 3 p.m. by an
English tug steamer. We left Bremerhaven at 2.30
p m. on Saturday, but owing to the haze we dropped
anchors for the night. Started on Sunday. Nothing
particular occurred during the day, but in the night
from Sunday to Monday I felt two rieavy shocks;
dressed as fast as I could, and found the stairs to the
deck filled with dressed and half-dressed passengers.
The furious waves of the sea were washiug over the
deck in complete darkness and a howling storm. We
took to our lifebelts, and expected the ship to break
up every minute. A few passengers jumped into the
boats with come sail, rs and an officer. Perhaps one of
the boats wae caved, but probably all three have been
lost. The daybreak was expected under the greatest
excitement. At last it came, and we were then able
to lock out for help. Many steamers and sails passed
by during the day. Every possible signal was used,
hut in vain. We had a night of despair before us.
The Deutschland stilt held out, but was severely
thumped and knocked about by a north gale, and
began leakieg. The passengers had to work the pumps
all day. When towards dusk no assistance came in
sight, we became resigned to our fate and prepared for
the worst. The steamer creaked most fearfully and
the gale was increasing. Almost all the passengers
spent a sleepless night in the cabin. At twe
o'clock a.m. a cry was raised for all of us who
could to climb up the rigging and masts, the ship
filling rapidly. There we were hanging for six mortal
hours. The deck was under water, and the lower
rigging swept by tbe waves, which carried off a
good many of our fellow-passengers, whom we saw
tossed about and then finally diseppaar. Others
could not hold on with their benumbed hands, and
dropped into the sea. The night was terrific. The cold,
the shrieks of the drowning, and the idea that we also
should soon share their fate, made hours appear an
awful eternity. The steamer, however, resisted, and
at last daylight appeared once more. Ebb set in and
the wind relented, so that we could climb down on a
portion of the aft deck and warm our feet by tramp-
ing. We counted the missing, and looked out for the
assistance which now was expected with certainty.
Steamers and fishing craft came in sight, but none of
them took any notice of us. We now fairly gave way
to despondency. For twenty-eight hours a large
steamer, with 200 passengers on board, had been
beached on a frequented passage, and yet nobody
thought of saving us ! Of food and drink but little
could be procured, the cabins being completely choked
with water. At last a shout was beard, A steamer
approaching!' and presently the tug came up, and
took as many as were left of us on board."

Many of the passengers of the Deutschland left Har-
wich for Southampton on Saturday afternoon. The
Mayoress presented each woman with a purse contain-
ing 275. 6d., and a parcel of useful articles; Mrs.
Jervis, wife of the member for Harwich, gave to each
9a. which had been raised by subscription. As the
train moved away three cheers were given for the
Harwich ladies by the shipwrecked people.

The result of the inquiries made by Mr. Meyer,
Chancellor of the German Consulate in London, as to
the number and names of the persons on board the
Deutschland, gives the following figures :—Passengers
saved: 48 men and 21 women and children; crew
saved (including captain and three pilots), 86. Total
saved, 155. Drowned—passengers about 44 crew,
about 20; total (approximate), 64.

A letter from Brightlingsea, dated December 12,
states :

"During Saturday night and to-day the smacks belonging
to this place have picked up and recovered from the
Deutschland steamer on the Kentish Knock, a quantity of
cabin furniture, vessel's stores, tutd a portion of the cargo;
also some personal effects, consisting of clothing blankets,
luau, &c., and a small lot of silver plate."

On Monday morning a solemn Requiem Mass was
said in the Franciscan Church, Stratford, "for the
repose of the souls of four Franciscan nuns," who lost.
their lives through the wreck of the Deutschland., and
Cardinal Manning delivered a funeral oration. The
four coffins containing the bodies were placed on
treseels just below the altar steps, and, the lids not
having been fastened ciosvn, before the service
commenced many of the priests who took part
in it and many of the congregation were enabled
to view them as they lay preparatory to inter-
ment. The bodies were dressed in the ordinary attire
of nuns of the Franciscan Order, to which the deceased
belonged. The hands were clasped in each other,
having rosaries around them. A small circlet of white
flowers rested on the bosom, and there was a cord at
the side. The faces were entirely uncovered. On
each side of the four csffine, which were placed close
together, burned three long tapers; and whenever the
coffins were not open for spectators a chaplet of ever-
greens with lilies ,n the centre, was put over the head
of each coffin. The faces of the deceased all wore a very
placid aspect, and there was nothing about them iudi-
eating the sad manner in which death had occurred.
The church, which is of moderate dimensions, was much
crowded. The pulpit and the altar were draped in black,
and the six candles on the altar were lighted. About
fifty priests connected with the church and with different
parts of the metropolis took part in the service. The
celebrating priest was Father Francis, Superior of the
Franciscan Order in Stratford, and the dean, Father
H‘gan, of the Spanish-place chapel, the sub-dean being
a German priest. Just before the dirge was com-
menced by about a dozen priests standing near the
pulpit, Cardinal Manning, who, except when the
nature of the service required its removal, wore his
archiepiscopal mitre, briefly viewed the bodies.
Monsignor Searle assisted in the succeeding ceremony.
Towards the close of the service, and after the cele-
bration of High Mass, Cardinal Manning, standing on
the top of the altar steps, close to the coffins weich
stretched lengthwise before him, the feet of the de-
ceased being towards the altar, delivered with a very
clear-and solemn voice, the funeral oration which had
been announced. Addressing those before him as
"Dear children in Jesus Christ," he commenced by
saying that he was at a loss to know what words to
speak, feeling that nothing he could say could add to
the human pity and Christian piety with which their
hearts were moved. Why, however, he went on to
say, should they mourn over those whose whole life was
given to the service of "the Sacred Heart"? Why
should they lament that death had cut short a career
which was wholly given to the service of God? They
never saw their /aces till that day, and hardly one of
those who heard him knew the names they bore, and yet
they had been received with tenderness of human love
and the supernatural grace of Christian charity. After
speaking of the deceased as "daughters of the Seraphic
Father St. Francis," who had devoted their lives of
poverty and content in ent to the service of the sick and the
fostering of little children, and who had been received
there into the family of St. Francis by fathers of their
own order, and after saying that the holy ones who were
lying before him were their sisters by a three fold bond
--in the sympathies of nature, in the charities of the
Roman Catholic Church, and in the intimate domestic
love of the great family of St. Francis, he proceeded
as follows: What can we say, what do we know, of
their past? We, indeed, know nothing but this. They
had a home peaceful and happy, fruitful in good works
in that great Fatherland in which the Catholic faith
strikes root so deeply that no storms can shake it.
They were labouring in peace; they were minis-
tering consolation to the sick and the dying;
they were training little children in the holy
fear and love of God and of His blessed Mother.
Why was their land no longer a borne to them? I will
not answer the question. It would be a note of dis-
cord, and your hearts would hardly bear it. Never-
theless, that home was home no more, and they were
constrained by the hard necessity imposed ,upon them
to go forth from it as strangers into a foreign land. to
embark on shipboard, and to meet the perils of a
wintry sea. The Cardinal then alluded to some of
the painful incideets of the wreck, and observed that
, amid the prevailing agony an offer was made to the
deceased to go up the rigging, but that they de-
clined, being engaged in preparing for death, and thus
others were enabled to occupy the places they might
have filled; and he added that there was reason to
believe that the sight of the calm resignation of these
holy sisters proved a useful example to some who
I shared their fate. Who could tell how many acts of
I contrition, of faith and of submission there were during
those hours of agony? The example of those sisters
was like an articulate voice preaching to others.
Might God of His infinite mercy accept the prayers of
those whom he addressed and his own, that all those
who through that agony had passed into His presence
might be washed in the precious blood of Jesus, and
after that expiation might see His face for ever.
The Requiem Service, which, including the address,
occupied about an hour and a quarter, was then con-
cluded, and immediately after several hundred persons
were allowed to see the bodies of the deceased, the
spectators passing in a continuous stream for nearly
half an hour by the side of the coffins, and after a
hurried glance emerging from the church through
the sacristy at the back. The coffins were then
placed in tour hearses, followed by the same num-
ber of mourning carriages, some of which were occu-
pied by Franciscan Fathers and others by nuns o the
Order of the Servants of the Sacred Heart from
Homerton. A large crowd followed the funeral, but
there was no procession. The interment took place at
St. Patrick's Catholic Cemetery, Leytonstone, about a
mile from the chureh where the Reouiem Mass was
performed.

On Tuesday, at Harwich, the adjourned inquest on
the, bodies of pa..sengers drowned in the Deutschland
was held, before Mr. Codd, County Coroner.
After the necessary evidence had been taken the jury
retired to consider their verdict, and, after remaining in
delibPration for three hours, returned with the following
special finding
We, the jury, find that the several parties whose bodies
have been inspected came to th ir deaths by exposure and
dr widne in consequence of the stranding at the steamship
Deutbchland on the Kentish Knock, between the hours of five
a in. cn Monday, D.-cembor 6, and ten a m. on Tuesday, De-
cember. 7 the primary cause being that, owing to the Late of
the we tither, the captain List his reckoning and did not know
where he wa.., hut we do not attribute to him any criminal act.
The jury Om desire to append to their verdict the following
re marks :- They regret tbat there were not on hoard the
Deutichland the best-known a .pliances for ascertaining the
diAance sun, and the best system for lowering hosts at sea;
also that there was not an experienced North Sea pilot on
board. They would also add that great credit is due to the
captain and crew of the ste,enat lig for going out to the re. cue
of the bev4chrand and b inking oil so many survivors, who,
but for their asshettnce, might all have perished."
The Coroner said that amounted to a verdict of
"Accidental death."

There were 2,432 births and 1..856 deaths registered
In London last week. The deaths from scarlet fever, which
bad been 120 and 104 in the two prev,ons weeks, further de-
clined to 103, but exceed d the corrected average weekly
number by 24. During the twtnty.two days ending It
Saturday the mean temperature was coht;nuously below the
average ; the mean for this period was 336, and the average
deficiency 8 0. The deaths referred to diseases of the respira-
tory organs, whtch in the eight preceding weeks had slowly
increased from 194 to 391. now rose to 533, and exceeded the
corrected average number in the corresponding week of the
last ten yews by 71; 342 resulted from bronnhitls, and 132
from pneumonia.