The Sun.
London, England, 1867-11-28 00:00:00

Eohoes from the Clubs-

As handsome a table-book as we have seen -for a
very long while, has just now been issued from the
press, the contents of the volume being simply the
gathering together of the first half•year's imprint in
weekly numbers of the " Echoes from the Clubs."
And, ephemeral though the themes of the various
contributors to this elegant west-end periodical are
for the most part in themselves, the bulk of the pub-
lication is written with so much esprit, sparkle, and
effervescence, that it is really worthy of preserva-
tion thus for after reference. Several of the Ima-
ginary Conversations are worthy of a younger
Landor—a Walter Savage in lackerecl boots and
kid gloves, with the bloom of youth upon his
cheeks and the glitter of fun in his eyes, %ith a
" mot" upon occasion ever ready to his lips and an
inexhaustible capacity, like that of Praed, for the
scribbling of those rarest of rare trifles, vers de
societe, really entitled (by reason of their mingled
Melody and wit) to preservation for reference. If
there is one thing more than another in regard to
Club life and West-end society generally, that is sig-
nalised in a conspicuous way by the publication of this
first volume of " Echoes from the Clubs" after the
periodical has been in existence now for upwards of
half a year, and has been pouring forth its fun and
frolic upon our boudoir tables, club tables, library
tables, drawing-room tables, and what not, week
after week, in six-and-twenty animated instalments,
it is this—that the days of the great wits have
passed by utterly and completely. For had it been
otherwise, here we must inevitably have had echoed
to us "So and So's Last"—and have roared over
.the quip, the crank, the " mot," the witticism, as
our fathers and grandfathers were wont to do over
"their wits' whimsies! With Douglas Jerrold the
last of the genus seemingly died out. And we look
around us in vain, to the right and to the left, for
any recognisable successor for the utterance of those
golden doubloons of wit that passed current in tht it
time from the lips of Alvanley, Luttrell, Sydney
Smith, Theodore Hook, Samuel Rogers, and not
least though latest of all, as we have said, Douglas
Jerrold. The absence of these more precious
morceaux of wit from the " Echoes from the Clubs"
has its significance, and certainly serves to illustrate
a notable deficiency, for which the age rather than
the periodical must be held responsible.

ME LOSS OF THE WYE.

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i'...:!ouTnA3IPTOT, Wednesday.

Beyond the announcement of the names of the
five Europeans who were saved from this vessel very
little information has been published relative to the
loss of the Royal Mail Company's steamship Wye
in the late disastrous hurricane. The subjoined par-
ticulars will therefore be read with interest. They
are extracted from a letter which appeared in the
Hampshire Independent, written by Mr. Joseph
Hill, a resident of this town, to whom they were
communicated by his nephew, Edwin Hill,
one of the five survivors :—" There were four
of the Royal Mail steamers plying in the Carib-
bean Sea, the names, &c., of which were as fol-
lows :—The Mersey, 1,000 tons, paddle, 250-horse
power ; the Conway, 865 tons, paddle, 260-horse
power ; the Derwent, 794 tons, paddle, 260 horse
power; and the Wye, 752 tons, screw, 180-horse
power. It will .be seen that three of the number
were paddle boats, the Wye king the only screw
vessel, and of the least tonnage and horse-power.
For some time previous to the hurricane the Wye
had been hauled up on the patent slip in St
Thomas' harbour, where she was thoroughly over-
hauled, repaired, painted, bottom cleaned, and all
made right on board. She left the harbour on
Saturday morning, the 26th of October, and
anchored at Fort Point, just outside St.
Thomas' harbour, this place being selected
for the steamers to anchor in to have the ad-
vantage of the breeze. On this :lay three of
the Europeans, E. Hill, R. Suowden, and James
Holland, left the hospital of St. Thomas, where they
had been uuder medical treatment, and again joined
the Wye, which remained quiet at the anchorage
till late in the evening of the 28th, when it began
to blow. At midwatch (12 at night) it blew very
hard, and then suddenly became calm till about 6
o'clock in the morning of the 29th, when the wind
blew in " puffs," accompanied by rain, and so con-
tinued till about half-past 9, when it increased with
great force, and the vessel could not remain at
anchor any longer, and the steam being up they
slipped the starboard cable, and steamed
away, endeavouring and hoping to get out to
sea. At this time there were on board 12 Euro-
peans belonging to the Wye—namely, the follow-
ing :—*Hodgson, chief officer ; Davies, fourth
officer; Thompson, chief engineer ; Hooper, acting
as second" engineer ; Colman, purser ; Hensford,
chief steward ; Snowden, barman ; *Hill, store-
keeper ; *Yates, third waiter ; *Holland, butcher ;
Bell, carpenter; *Meekin, boilermaker. There
were also on board, before slipping cable, three
other Europeans—namely, the junior harbour-
master of St. Thomas and two boatmen, who
managed to get on board for shelter in the Wye ;
also 43 men of colour, part of the crew, and six
other coloured men not belonging to the Wye, they
having been employed—four as painters and two
as carpenters on board the vessel. After the Wye
had been under way some little time Mr. Hodgson,
the chief officer, went forward to see that the port
anchor was right (the other anchor having been
slipped), • and after assisting to pass the shank
painter, and when endeavouring to return to the
quarter-deck, a sheep-pen washed him against one
of the seamen's closets, and jammed him there
with so much violence as to break his arm,
from which position he was released principally by
the assistance of the carpenter, who was never seen
afterwards. After this, notwithstanding the chief
officer's arm was broken, he continued to do every-
thing in his power to save the Wye, remaining on
board till he was washed over, and while under
way the wind listed her• over so much that the
starboard boiler would not feed, and the vessel was
then brought \nearly on her beam ends, but still
was kept under steam with the port boiler. The
hurricane, continuing to increase, carried away
both masts, the deck-houses, all the compasses and
boats, in short, sweeping everything from the
deck, and at about two p.m. on Tuesday, the 29th,
the Wye struck on the rocks, and within a
quarter of an hour after she had smack all who were
saved were on high land on Buck Island.' The
masts and riggers formed a kind of platform upon
which those who were saved clung. My nephew
*as submerged three times, and once as he was
sinking he heard one of his comrades (a poor fellow
who himself was lost) say Poor Ted is gone The
difficulty in effecting a landing on Buck Island was
very great. They all had to pass up a steep chine,
or ravine, down which there was an outset from a
mountain stream, the sea being driven up with terrific
force, the chief officer suffering much from his broken
arm. As breakfast was served out at 7 a.m. on the
19th on board the Wye, the sufferers had no food
whatever for a day and a half, some of them having
remained on the island till 5.30 p.m. the following
day. The chief officer and boilermaker were taken
off the island at 2 o'clock, and the remainder by a
gig sent out by Mr. Cameron at 5-30. It will be
seen from the foregoing particulars that out of 12
Europeans belonging to, and who were on board the
Wye, five only were saved, being those with an as-
terisk prefixed to their names in the foregoing list.
It is also proper to state that out of 52 men of colour
on board seven only were saved.

VAST DESTRUCTION OF IIERRING.—A gentleman
r,l3iding in the neighbourhood of the Gareloch in-
forms us that the destruction of herring fry going on in
that loch Las been something frightful. The loch is full
of fish, varying from a herring of ordinary size to one the
length of a finger, the former, however, bearing but a very
small proportion to the immature or undersized fish. The
trawlers have followed the herring into the loch, and are
destroying them in immense quantities. In some cases
the nets ara so completely packed with fish of all sizes
that they cannot be got into the boats, and have to be
dragged on shore in order to be delivered of their contents
No doubt, the mesh of the trawl is large enough to admit
of the escape of the small-sized herring; but from the
action of this particular kind of net the fish are jammed
together as if it were into a ball, and large and small are
destroyed promiscuously. The herring are sent toGreenock
or Glasgow, and offered for sale at the very small price of
4d per hundred. Very few of them; however, can be
ranked as ordinary sized herring. The trawlers them-
selves, it seems, admit that it is a horrid work they are en-
gaged in.—Glasgcno Herald.