The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-02-01 00:00:00

4re3tottritage Oflscrtrer.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1873.
THE ILL-FATED " NORTHFLEET."

What sad tales of disaster desolation, and
death are connected with The sea ! The
dark unfathomed caves of ocean conceal
memorials of calamities at lout as horrible
in their incidents as any of the horrors that
have occurred on land. Mrs. tlemans,
apostrophising the sea, exclaims :

"To thee the love of woman Lath gone down ;
Dark flow thy tides o'er manhood'a noble head,
O'er youth's hright locks, and b,auty's flowery crown!
Yet must thin hear a voice,—Restore the dead !
Earth shall reclaim her precious things from thee I
Restore the dead, thBu sea I"

I The terrible calamity off Dungeness is one
that is calculated to call forth the tenderest
feelings of compassion and sympathy; but
natural and praiseworthy as these may be it
is far more important to look at this terrible
collision and its awful results from prac-
tical points of view. The whole circum-
stances of the case are being and will yet
be thoroughly inquired into ; but meanwhile
there are reflections on which it may be well
to insist. That the "Northfleet " should
have been run into at all is most marvellous.
She had her proper lights burning according
to recognised regulations, and as far as can
at present be seen there must have been
some strange oversight or bungling in any
vessel, English or foreign, running amid-
ships into a vessel at anchor. If the rules
in such cases are not thoroughly understood
by all nations they ought to be, and if there
are any discrepancies they should be removed.
Is it not marvellous also that a vessel should
be allowed to be put to sea in the first place
loaded too heavily, and in the second place
withont adequate means for preserving life
in case of misadventure? On the first point
we will not insist, leaving it to be cleared up
by official inquiry, but on the second there
can be no doubt. The fact of upwards of
:0) people being drowned near the shore,
and within sight of at least 200 vessels,
brings out in strong relief
.the lamentable
fact that neither as to boats nor life-buoys
and life-belts was the Northfleet sufficiently
provided. Connected with this fact is the
strange circumstance that she was apparently
unsupplied with the proper means of making
signals of distress, or if she had them
originally they were, from some unaccount-
able cause, unavailable. Over and over
again has it now been stated that people
from the shore or on the ships in the harbour
saw lights from the vessel in distress, but
that these lights were not regarded as dis-
tress signals, but as signals for a pilot. But
for this unfortunate and natural misappre-
hension nearly all the lives now lost might
have been saved. Surely there must have
been some strange miscalculation or bad
management here. As Tennyson says of
the charge of the Light Brigade at Balak-
lava Some one had blundered." But when
the unhappy passengers and crew of the
" Northfleet " found that they must rely on
their own efforts, when the ill-fated vessel
was evidently sinking, how fearfully were
they deceived and devoted to death by the
absence of foresight and provision for an
escape from death! There ought to have
been a life-buoy or a life-belt provided for
each passenger and every member of the
crew—for every one on board; but how
lamentably different was the fact! And the
ship's boats were sorely inadequate in size
and number, as well as in facility of use, to
the emergency which took place, and which
ought always to be provided against. An
apparatus, invented by Captain Clifford, for
lowering ship's boats exists, which, in de-
fault of any better system, ought to be uni-
versally adopted. The system is confessedly
not perfect, but it is better than the old
bungling system which RO often and so
notoriously fails. Because the Clifford
system is not perfect this is no reason why
it should not be used, and if it can be im-
proved, why not adopt some modification of
it, instead of ship's boats being, as they now
often are, turned into hen-coops, or put to
some other use which makes their legitimate
use in case of emergency a matter of difficulty.
Another thought which will occur to many
who have read the sad narratives of this
awful calamity is, how many of those strong,
stalwart, muscular navvies, who were at one
time struggling in the water, could swim?
Had they all been able to swim, the lives of
1 many of them might have been saved. They
were near enough to many a vessel in the
offing to have battled successfully with the
waves till they could have made their posi-
tion known, and thus have escaped death.
The whole calamity was indeed awfully
sudden, and took captain, crew, and passen-
gers unawares ; but it is painful to find that
in this repect the arrangements of the good
ship " Northfleet " were sadly defective.
The incidents connected with this disaster,
elsewhere so fully recorded, will be read
with the deepest interest. They include
tales of heroism, of horror, and of noble
sympathy which will add striking episodes
to our maritime annals, and not the least
interesting episode is the letter of our good
Queen, who always manifests her sympathy
whenever the nation is afflicted—as it now
is with some terrible calamity which
saddens many a home. All that can be done
for the survivors is being done, and funds
have been subscribed even beyond the re-
quirements of the sufferers. But we hope
that with this sympathy and help the lessons
that this fearful collision ought to teach us
will not be allowed to die away unheeded.