The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-30 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, JAN. 30, 1864.

The news from South America relates one of the
most appalling accidents ever recorded in the annals
of calamity. The Church de la Compania, the
large church of Santiago, the capital of Chili, was on
the evening of tho Bth of December almost entirely
consumed by fire, during a religious ceremonial,
when the edifice filled in every part. S 3 dense was
the crowd, and so difficult were the means of egress
that only two-thirds of the large concourse wore
enabled to escape. Out of 3,000 persona assembled
nearly 2,000 are said to hays fallen victims to the
fl'me3. The scene, as described by an eye-witness,
is heart-rending to conternplate even in imagination.
Although there were three large doors to the
church, only one seems to have been available, and
the small side entrances were apparently forgotten
in the awful eagerness of the excited crowd. As
always+. happens in such calamities, as happens
every time a theatre or any public building is ever
supposed to be on fire, all rushed to one
outlet, which was soon hopelessly blocked up by
dead bodies. The spectators outside stood wring-
ing their hands iu helpless condition, unable
to arrest the work of destruction going on
before their eyes. The United States minister and
several other strangers made gallant and persevering
efforts to rescue some of the struggling victims. An
Eiv,lishman or American, it is not clearly known
which, ventured into the furnace, and while attempt.
in g to carry out a lady fell back and perished in the
named ARELLA was more
unes. A young lady
foitanate : after having; in vain, implored the by-
standers outside to rescue her mother who was
within the church, she rushed in herself and, won-

d ;erful to relate, herself succeeded in bearing out
1 ter precious load. While such incidents excite our
w armest sympathies with the happy few who were

er abled to escape or to rescue those most dear to
th em, what words can paint the anguish of the
rn.ousand bereaved hearts who, on that sad night
bewailed the loss of so many loved ones' A few
years back a comparatively trifling but to all
concerned an appalling accident occurred, it
will be remembered at the Surrey Gardens
w hen a large concourse of people were assembled to
llimr Mr. SPURGEON. At that time great excite-
ent prevailed, and many means were suggestedfor
ensuring the safety of assembled crowds, whether
i n places of public worship or of amusement. We
re not aware that since that occurrence any available
Irecautionary measures have been adopted. When
(ovent Garden Theatre was burnt down on the
night of the 4th of March, 1856, every one rejoiced
ill the providential hour at which the calamity
occurred—after the dispersion of the audience. Had
the accident happened a few hours earlier, a catas-
trophe similar to that at Chili might have be©n the
result. We ar© as powerless as were the sad spec-
':ators of that conflagration to afford any help or
1.11-aviation to the sad sufferers and survivors of the
t:lalamity. While, however, we deplore their loss,
t;he lesson should not be lest upon ourselves. Any
t;imilar casualty would find our crowded assemblies
!qually embarassed in striving to effect a rapid'
egress ; and grcat as are our mechanical skill
and our power of constructive invention,
I:he channels of egress from the majority of our
public buildings would on emergency be found to be
as fatally inaccessible to an excited crowd as were
;he closed doors of the doomed Church of Santiago.

The protracted investigation which recently took
place before Mr. HENRY at Bow-street Police-cffice
into the murder of the captain and mate and others
san board the Flowery Land in the South Atlantic
Ocean, and the piratical seizure of the vessel by
the crew, which resulted in the committal of eight
cif the number for trial, must be still fresn 1°
ecollection of our readers. In former times piracy
was rife on almost every sea, but at present, we
are happy to say, piracy, in the old acceptance of
the term, is extinct, except in the China seas, and
amongst the savages in the remote islands of the
Indian Archipelago. What is termed piracy now-
a-days is rather the seizure of a vessel by her own
crew, or a portion of them, than the capture being
effected by another ship sailing under the black
ensign. We have rarely met with a case in which
such cold-blooded murder was perpetrated as by the
seamen of the Flowery Land ; and the perpetrators
of the outrage will doutless meet with a deserved
punishment. Beyond this, however, it is our duty,
so far as possible, to prevent the recurrence of such
a disaster. The Flowery Land left London, bound
for Singapore, in July last, under the command of
JOHN SMITH. The crew, with the exception of
the first and second mate, and the carpenter, who
was a Dane, and a French seaman, were composed
of a mixed company of vagabonds, collected from
all parts of the globe—Greeks, Turks, Sclavonians,
Malays, and Chinamen. With such an incongru-
ous collection, the captain had much difficulty in
getting the ship properly navigated, and after
two or three quarrels a portion of the crew sur-
prised the ship, and having murdered the captain,
first mate, ,and the captain's brother, who was a
passenger, they compelled the second mate, whose
life they spared for that purpose, to navigate the
ship to the South American Coast. Here they
landed, after scuttling the ship and disposing of
the steward, and one or two others whom they
disliked. Yet, strange to say, they spared the lives
of the second mate, the carpenter, and the French-
man, upon whose evidence they have been brought
to justice. It is evident that the captain and his
officers were at the mercy of the ruffians who
composed the crew, when at any time they might
determine to attack them. Including the captain's
brother, the carpenter, and the Frenchman, there
were but six Europeans on board. It is true that
had treachery been expected those men, aided by
the steward, who was a Malay, and the cook and
lamp trimmer, who were Chinamen, might have
defended themselves, and carried the vessel into
some port, where they could have got rid of the
riffraff crew; but amongst an assemblage, where
the conspirators can converse together in an un•
known tongue, and mature their plans in secret,
detection is very difficult. The captain was cer-
tainly remiss in not taking more precautions than
he seems to have done, knowing the class of men he
had to deal with. For this oversight he has paid a
heavy penalty, but we consider it a disgrace to this
country that a British ship should sail from an
English port with such a disreputable ship's com-
pany. Before the repeal of the Navigation Laws,
some sixteen or seventeen years ago, it
was compulsory upon all ship-owners to
have a certain number of British seamen and
apprentices employed in their vessels, in proportion
to their tonnage, but when the Free-trade mania
was all powerful, complaints were made by those
interested in the cheap carriage of merchandise.
They said that the law which virtually excluded
foreigners from competing with our shipowners,
and likewise compelled the said shipowners to em.
ploy a certain class of men, who on that account
required higher wages than foreign seamen would
work for, was unjust, and that shipowners, manu•
facturers, and the world at large, were the victims
of a monopoly. The agitation was successful, the
Navigation Laws were not amended, as they very
properly might have been, but they were repealed,
and we are now reaping the benefit of our over-
liberality to those who do not care to meet us half
way with concessions. Shipowners, like other men,
naturally desire to have their work done as cheaply
as possible, and, with the exception of a few large
firms, apprentices are considered an unprofitable
trouble; and when no longer compelled to employ
British seamen, they are now too glad to obtain
the services of Germans and Spaniards, who will
work for less wages, and not be so exigent in their
requirements as Englishmen. The natural conse-
quence of this has been that a considerable pro-
portion of our mercantile navy is manned by
foreigners, while Englishmen are compelled either
to work for indifferent wages or to seek
foreign service, where their natural ability and
general rectitude of conduct avail them more than
they can do in their own country. America is thus
supplied with seamen for her merchant service in
the middle of the nineteenth century, as her frigates
were manned at its commencement by the short-
sighted policy of England, altteouela the ever in-
creasing extent of our commerce and the nautical
predilections of our population to a certain degree
neutralise the effects of this system, it cannot be
denied that our merchant service, the nursery of
our navy, has not been benefited by the repeal of
the Navigation Laws. We do not wish that the
old exclusive laws should be re-enacted, but we
think that certain restrictions might be placed upon
shipowners, end that they should be again obliged
to carry a certain proportion of British seamen, er
at all events not jeopardise the lives of the officers
by shipping desperadoes from Spanish America,
and other resorts of bravos and cut-throats. Eng-
land has derived much benefit from the development
of her free trade policy, but we may have too much
of a good thing. What is good for the goose ought
not to be poison for the gander, and while en-