The Press.
London, England, 1854-06-24 00:00:00

596

scrutiny which were necessary to enable the masses to well
understand it. Patience was a bad text for a sermon at
any time, and was not a very popular one ; but they must
have patience until the matter was further discussed. He
hoped, therefore, that those gentlemen who were engaged
in this interesting and important question would persevere
in their laudable efforts to sift this matter, and he had no
doubt that future discussion, with the means happily
afforded for such a purpose, would bring them before long
to some practical result;
.but the feeling of the Government
was that they were not ripe for decisive measures, and the
opinion of Parliament ought not to be invoked until they
were ripe. Sir John Herschel, a favourable witness, had
said that it would take twenty years to carry out an object
of this nature. He was far from committing himself to
such an opinion as this, but he quite agreed that the sys-
tem proposed would be a labour-saving machine, and it
was by labour-saving machines that the power and great-
ness of this country had been achieved.

AN INCIDENT IN ATLANTIC STEAMING.
Tug following narrative of danger and preservation is
related by a passenger on board a steamer which recently
performed the voyage from Liverpool to New York :—" For
the first three days we had very bad weather, but it soon
afterwards moderated, and we continued on our way without
accident till we ran into a dense fog on the banks of New-
foundland. Believing that we were clear, and, indeed,
far to the southward of the ice, the captain was going full
instead of slow speed, as is usual on the banks, when all
at once, right before us, and within 10U yards of our bows,
a gigantic iceberg was looming in the mist. The top was
considerably higher than the topgallant•yard, andfli covered
as far as we could see, passing it quickly as we did. a large
extent of water. The captain looked as if he had been
struck in the face, and, though his lips moved, he could
not speak to give the necessary orders. But the second
mate, who was there, shouted to the men at the wheel as if
he would crack his voice, and all the passengers, who
rushed on deck in a moment at the first alarm, took it up.
A moment more—ten seconds more—and our bows would
have been flattened to the foremast, for we were going
nearly 13 knots an hour ; but we just cleared it. The
paddle-box was within 12 feet of it; one could easily have
jumped upon it. Some of the ladies fainted with the fright,
but, though we went slow for about an hour, during which
time we saw two other bergs, you will hardly believe that
at the end of that time, just as night set in, with a fog
still on the water so thick that, standing on deck, you
could not see the light on the foremast head, the captain
went on full speed again, and did not slacken all night.
There was very nearly a mutiny among the passengers.
Some of them were captains of ships trading in these seas
themselves, and they all unanimously condemned it. Of
course no one can presume even to speak to a captain in
his own ship about what he chooses to do, but his own
officers were as nervous as we. We had prayers in the
cabin for the passengers and crew, to return thanks for
our preservation, and during the whole of that night I
fancy many people said prayers that perhaps never did
before. I never, for my part, passed such a night in my
life, at least till I went to sleep, at about twelve or half-
past. Most of the passengers and crew were collected in
little knots, discussing our chance of escape, and there
were we crashing on through mist and darkness with the
chance of going at any moment into an invisible iceberg—
in which case, as the captain afterwards admitted, we
should have been down in live minutes, without a chance
of any of us being heard of again."