The Press.
London, England, 1856-10-18 00:00:00

THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL MAIL STEAMER

" TAY."

MANY conflicting statements have been abroad
about the loss of the Royal Mail steamer Tay. The
wreck of the vessel has at length been authenticated.
The official report of the captain has been received
this week. The following private letter gives some
interesting details :

Tampico, Sept. 6, 185(1.
The poor old Tay is lost. Thank God, all but thrfe
are saved ! and we are now in Tampico, where we are re.
cruiting ourselves after the trials we have undergone, for
we are all of us more or less debilitated by exposure. I
hope you will receive this letter as soon as the news of the
loss of the ship reaches England, to prevent you being
uneasy. We struck about half past five on the morning of
the 30th of August, and were obliged to abandon the ship
about four hours cfter. I have lost nearly everything, as
also have the rest. We bad to pull about thirteen miles
to an island called Lobos, where we remained tour
days. We luckily found two wells of water on the island,
or we should all have perished. We were lost on the
coast between Vera Cruz and Tampico, just off Lobos. As
soon as we knew that we could not save the ship, the
second officer and Admiralty agent, with mails and passen-
gers, started for Tampico, which we thought they would
reach in twelve hours, instead of which they took three
days ; and after all did not get there, as they were obliged
to beach the boat, before they got there, in a heavy surf.
They started in such a hurry that they found, when they
had left the ship, that they had only about a Ohm of
water amongst thirty people. They landed to look for
water, but they were all so weak that they were unable to
look for it. When the sun went down the beat was not so
intense, and they were able to crawl about; fortunately
they then found some, and also some Indiana, who pro-
vided them with horses to ride to Tampico. The Mexi-
cans immediately sent down one of their frigates to take
us off ( from the Island of Lobos). You may imagine
our delight when we saw her heave in sight. We arrived
here late last nigh: (September 5). I am now quite well—
only a little weak. The ladies in the boat behaved admir-
ably. Poor things, they were nearly dead. Imagine
forty-eight hours without water, exposed to a sun which no
one without compulsion exposes himself to. I took off
some of the passengers, and went in one of our lifeboats
with what revisions we could save, and put them into the
other boats outside the surf. We fortunately lowered our
boats as soon as we struck. If we had not done so, we
should have been unable to do it a quarter of an hour situ.-
wards, as the sea was breaking over us. The lifeboat
behaved beautifully. The captain left the ship last of all;
he behaved in a most noble way
very thankful it did not happen in my watch ; but I sup-
pose we shall all have to come home to be examined, but
Ido not know as yet. We shall not leave here for above
a month, as there is no means of getting to St. Thomas
sooner. We are sending our letters by a small schooner
which will go to New York viii. New Orleans. I hope
you will get this letter safely, We went in the boat from
Lobos three days running, to see if we could rescue any-
thing, but the surf was so great that we could not manage
it, except on the third day, when we got on board, and
found a few eatables and some live stock. Lots of the
fowls were dead, and also the sheep.

THE LATE Mn. G. A. A BECKETT.—The gentlemen
who had been so long associated with Mr. rl Beckett,
in connection with Punch, have caused the lamented
magistrate's remains to be removed from the Bou-
logne cemetry to that at Highgate, where they were
deposited on Thursday last. . .

ARCHDEACON HALE- was on Monday instituted as
Official with the City and Diocese of London during
the vacancy of the see.
ARCHDEACON DENISON'S CASE is fixed for settle-
ment on Tuesday next by the Archbishop of Canter-
bury.

Mn. Joint B. LEE, of the Broad Sanctuary, Deans-
yard, Westminster. has been appointed secretary to
the Bishop of London, on the retirement of Mr.
Christopher Hodgson, who has filled the office for
forty-three years. It is stated authoritatively that no
definite scheme has yet been agreed to with refer-
ence to a division of the see of London, to carry out
which will require a special act of Parliament.

988

lortign ar,orrrspantenct.

PARIS, October 16.
Tne monetary and commercial crisis is, of course,
the grand topic ; silver is becoming dearer than
ever, and the small gold five-franc pieces (for there
are two sizes, old and new) are only taken at a re-
duction—why, nobody can say, for the weight of
gold is the same, it being only a question of thick-
ness versus breadth ; the " prime sur les pieces de
cinq francs " placards, a week ago in the exchangers'
windows, have all disappeared, in obedience to a
Government order, and for the same reason the
daily journals ignore all mention of the crisis.
Nevertheless, the talk of it is universal, and at eight
in the evening the Passage de l'Opera and its neigh-
bourhood is all but impassable from the crowds of
actionnaires there assembled. The police, how-
ever, are active, and " circulez, messieurs, si'l vous
plait," is even more constantly repeated than the
stern " Now, then, move on," of B 79, with you in
London. "Le cours de la Bourse "is all and every-
thing now, and you hear of nothing but the hausse
or beim in the same (of late it has been the latter
daily), and some terrible losses have been sustained.
I know cases of almost total ruin taking place before
mid-day, all from the insane gambling which goes on
here. At such a juncture it is unfortunate that the
Government should be unpopular, but so it is, and
there is no use in disguising the fact. Certain it is
that the Emperor is not looked on by the populace
as he was three months ago. This arises from various
causes—first, the prolonged sojourn of the Court at
Biarritz was at such a time as the present decidedly
injudicious; it gave grounds for imputing to the Em-
peror an indifference to the welfare of his Parisian
subjects, which he little deserves at their hands.
Next, the expenses of the Court are without doubt
enormous, and a large portion are disbursed in
amusements at a distance from the capital—
viz., Biarritz and Compeigne : why not have them,
say the Parisians, at St. Cloud, where the
reflex of them would at least be shed upon us ?
Lastly, the price, not merely of provisions, but of
house rent, is enormous ; the one owing to a much
more general failure of crops in the agricultural dis-
tricts here than you are aware of in England, and
the vexatious octroi duties (when will that absurdity
be swept away from the French system of finance ?)
which at such times as the present raise the price of
food to almost starvation terms; the other, to the
vast improvements in the way of new streets, public
buildings, &c., which have necessitated the demoli-
tion of thousands of artisans' houses—consequently
they are turned on the world, but have not where
to choose, for the rentiers keep up their terms to an
unattainable height, and the poorer classes are
nearly houseless in consequence. In fact, at this
moment no class is so abhorred in Paris as the pro-
prietaires—" mod aux proprietaires," " tue ton proprie-
taire, je tuerai le mien," and other denunciatory lan-
guage, figured the other night in placards on the
street comers till torn down by the police ; and my
own impression is that if, as there seems too much
reason to fear, any outbreak does take place ere long
in Paris, it will be mainly owing to this cause. As
you know, a workmen's deputation waited on the
Emperor the other day, and was well received; but
the evil seems beyond even his Majesty's capa-
city, great as that is, to remedy. As usual, the
French lay all the blame on their Sovereign, just as
they would if an expected singer at the Opera failed
to arrive, or a fête day turned out wet. The reviews
have been well attended, and very successful, but to
an observer the reception of the Emperor was visibly
chill. When will our allies learn to value, as he de-
serves, such a sovereign as Napoleon III.?
The approaching conferences excite no interest
here. As it is supposed to be only an ambassado-
rial meeting, no novelty is attached thereto; some of
the Paris papers, however, are bitter in their attacks
on England, the AssemWe National in particular,
touching Neapolitan affairs, and the Siecle poorly
defends us. The tone is certainly to the effect of
England pursuing her policy, and France hers; but
the language of some of the papers against England
is such as any London paper would be ashamed to
use with regard to our ally. The censorship of the
press seems of little value after all. Paris meantime
is fuller than ever of English, crowds of whom pro-
menade the Boulevards and Champs Elysees at all
hours, dine everywhere, see everything, and dress in
all kinds of marvellous costumes. Ladies' dresses
are more enormous than ever, and are caricatured
(or would be, rather, if susceptible of so being) in
print shops. The Archbishop of Paris's remark that
ladies seem to forget how narrow the gates of heaven
are, is the happiest hit yet made on the subject.
The Government, I learn trom good authority, are
about taking measures to lower the price of food,