The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-10-11 00:00:00

RD, AND GENERAL COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER.

WRECK of a LIVERPOOL EMIGRANT
SHIP. FRIGHTFUL LOSS OF LIFE.

ONE of the most terrible catastrophes that it has been
our lot to record for some time occurred on Wednesday,
the 28th ult., when the emigrant ship Annie Jane, Mason
commander, belonging to Liverpool, was driven ashore
on the iron-bound coast of Barra Island, during the
recent gales, and no fewer than 348 passengers—men,
women, and children—met with a watery grave.
The Annie Jane, of 1294 tons burthen, sailed from
Liverpool on Wednesday, the 23d of August, for Quebec
and Montreal, with a cargo of tea, rice, pepper, a large
quantity of iron, principally for railways, soap, cordage,
anchors, and other valuable merchandise, and 415 emi-
grants, exclusive of infants, of whom 337 were steerage
passengers. On the 25th she met with a heavy gale,
and, owing to the bad stowing of her cargo, rolled
so heavily to windward that she carried away her
fore and mizen topmasts. The passengers then
bogged the captain to put back to Liverpool, which
he did. She sailed again on the 9th ult., and on
the 12th, at four, p.m., met another gale, which car-
rieft away her fore and mizen topmasts and lower mast-
heads ; they then had to cut away the jibboom to clear
the ship of the wreck. She lay to for two days, and they
rigged a jury foreyard, set a sail upon it, and, at the re-
newed solicitation of the passengers, the captain again
put back for Liverpool ; but, when night came on, he put
the ship about for Quebec. On this becoming evident
next day there was a great sensation among the passen-
gers, and they remonstrated with the captain, who is said
to have replied, " Quebec or the bottom ! and a bullet for
the man who offers to take charge !" On the 21st they
fell in with another gale, and lost the maintopsail, main-
yard, and had to cut away the maintopmast, the ship
rolling so much that the chain cable was dashed from one
side of the deck to the other, making a noise like thunder,
which, mingled with the shrieks of the passengers, was
fearful. One of the seamen, a Canadian, had his legs
broken by getting them entangled with the chain.
They then continued drifting, as the ship was nearly
unmanageable in such a gale, until the night:, of
the 28th, when they sighted the island of Barra, and the
captain, seeing that the ship must go ashore, steered for
a small 'sandy bay, where she 'struck about twenty
minutes past twelve, at first lightly, and then so heavily
that the bottom parted from the top sides, the pas-
sengers, screaming dreadfully the whole of the time.
Another huge breaker struck on her quarter and the
poop deck sank, crushing some 200 emigrants to death.
In ten minutes more the ship was in pieces. It was most
heartrending to hear the shrieks of 300 human beings
struggling for life. The poop's deck by this time floated,
and 100 of the emigrants and sailors found standing room
on this fragment ; many of them perished with cold or
were smothered under the trampling of others. About
day-break the tide ebbed and left the fragment high and
dry, when 102 walked ashore, 348 having been drowned or
killed in fifteen minutes the previous night. The bulk of
the emigrants were from Scotland, a good number from
Ireland, some Germans, and a few French.
..The-ship's crew were Canadians, except six taken- in at
Liverpool. Ten sailors and the mate, all Canadians, were
drowned. The boatswain, from Dumbarton, on the Clyde,
was also drowned- All the survivors speak with the highest
praise of the conduct of the boatswain.
Of the passengers and emigrants on board 66 weresaved,
including 15 women, one of whom rescued her infant child
four months old, one of twins, the other being washed out
of her arms and lost. The• captain and about 35 of the
crew escaped, the first mate being lost.
There were about 20 cabin passengers ; among these•
some Swiss gentlemen. Of the passengers eight were lost,.
including Captain Rose and his wife. Captain Rose was
on his way to take charge of a ship for the owners of the'
Annie Jane. _ _

Before the sailors left the. island 250 dead bodies had
been recovered and buried upon the island ; among these
were the bodies of Captain Rose and his lady.
The shipwrecked sailors arrived at Tobermory on Mon-
day in the sloop Maria, and were taken care of by the
agent of that excellent institution,. the Fishermen's Ship.
wreck Society, and had a free passage given them by the
owners of the Chevalier.
Many of the emigrants were natives of Ireland, one of
those, a young lad, has lost 15 of his relatives in the
wreck.
Captain Hall, who, was visiting the Western Islands for
the purpose of establishing sailors! homes, found the un-
fortunate shipwrecked crew at Tobermory (island of
Mull). They all were present at the meeting, when ar-
rangements were immediately made- to establish a sailors'
home: A large sum was subscribed-, and a committee ap-
pointed to carry it out,
The names of the passengers who have arrived at Tober-
mory, are John Kingston, county of Cork ; George, bro-
ther to the former; Timothy Dineur, county of Cork;
James Edmiston, county of Antrim ; Alexander M'Cor,.
mick, county of Armagh ; Martha Tevanning, county of
Cork, and some French Canadians. The crew are James
Boyd, James Marshall, Charles Carroll, of Bay Chaleur..
Thomas Gemmel, Joseph Miller, Antonio Ligett, Charles
Burdon, James Gemmel,
and Charles Burnett.

THE CHOLERA IN LIVERPOOL.

Ix the Standard of Tuesday last we made the unwelcome
announcement, that several fatal cases of cholera had oc-
curred in Liverpool—at that time, so far as was known,
confined to emigrants, chiefly German and Irish, who had
taken berths on board the Silas Greenman, bound for
Boston, in the-United States, but prevented by bad wea-
ther from taking her departure from this port. We also
intimated that the Isaac Wright, another emigrant ship,
which had sailed from Liverpool on the 20th ult., with
600 emigrants on board, had met with a serious disaster
on the south coast of Ireland, which compelled her to re-
turn here, and that she had, in the course of the pre-
vious afternoon, been seen off Holyhead, in tow of a steam
vessel. While communicating that intelligence, we were
unaware of one very serious and fatal disaster which had
overtaken the passengers of that unfortunate vessel. She
was brought into Liverpool at an early hour on Tuesday
morning, and the information was then conveyed, that
cholera, in a malignant form, had broken out among her
passengers—that during her brief voyage forty-seven of
her inmates, having died, were consigned to the deep ;
that, at the time of her arrival in Liverpool, she had three
dead bodies on board, victims to the disease, and which
were interred immediately on being brought on shore ;
that many other passengers were labouring under its
effects, three of whom died in course of being conveyed to
the hospital, at the workhouse on Brownlow-hill ; and
that nearly all of the emigrants were in a most miserable
and wretched state. With the least possible delay the
crew and passengers were landed, and with very few ex-
ceptions conveyed to the workhouse, in which five of them
died shortly after their admission, forty -three patients,
from among the Isaac Wright's passengers, remaining
under treatment on Tuesday afternoon. Up to the same
time twenty-four deaths had occurred in the hospital,
among the passengers belonging to the Silas Greenman.
Every possible accommodation and kindness were
afforded to those unfortunate strangers by the governor
and the other officials at the workou.se ; and all the means
which medical science and philanthropy could suggest
for alleviating the distress of the sufferers, were speedily
applied ; still, as must be obvious, the sudden and unex-
pected arrival of such a number of individuals, occasioned
no ordinary strain upon the resources of the workhouse,
and the attention of its officers and servants ; and not-
withstanding the utmost zeal of all parties, it was a work
of great difficulty and labour, as well as no small risk, to
classify and accommodate so unlooked-for and large an
accession of inmates. Throughout the day on Tuesday,
the shed, covering the carriage entrance to the workhouse,
presented an unusual and' strikingly distressing appear-
ance, both sides of the way being so filled up with the
chests, bedding, and other' luggage, belonging to the pas-
sengers from the Isaac Wright. as to leave but a narrow
alley between them, while a crowd of the passengers
themselves, of both sexes, and of varying age, clung about,
or loitered among the heaps, exhibiting in their coun-
tenances a singular mixture of anxiety and listlessness.
On Wednesday and the following days many of those
parties were permitted to leave the workhouse, and they,
along with their luggage, were located in various lodging-
houses throughout the town • but up to Saturday evening
this entrance to the workhouse continued encumbered
with property belonging to the returned or dead emigrants
from the Isaac Wright. What may be the ultimate re-
sults of such a dispersion of those visitants among the in-
habitants it is impossible to tell, and no easy matter even
to conjecture; one thing, however, is certain, and that is,
several of them have been brought back to the hospital
from their lodgings, labouring under symptoms of cholera,
although they were seemingly free from disease at the
time of their departure, and some of the cases have proved
fatal.

One matter occurring in connexion with these unfortu-
nate events, and calling loudly for remark, is the utter
want of preparation of any kind, on the-part of our autho-
rities, to meet the exigencies of such a- calamity as that
encountered on board the Isaac Wright, and, at the same
time, provide for the safety of the town; and the health of
the inhabitants. On the Thursday preceding the return
of that vessel, cholera was known—officially reported,
indeed—to have broken out to a serious extent, in an
emigrant ship about to leave the docks. On the discovery
being made, her numerous passengers were immediately
landed, and the sick among them instantly transferred
to the hospital at the Workhouse, on Brownlow-hill,
where it ought never to have been necessary to receive
such cases, and among these patients many fatal results
had occurred ; yet on the coming of the. vast influx of
diseased strangers by the Isaac Wright being announced,
we! find there was still no other asylum for them but such
as could be improvised for the occasion in the Brownlow-
hill Workhouse. Nay, on their approaoh being made
known, we are told "the rooms intended for their recep-
tion were WHITEWASHED, and comfortable beds PEE-
ris,Enfor them !" For the tardiness of this preparation
we cannot think the workhouse authorities-are to blame ;
on the contrary, they seem entitled to high-commendation
for the a-lacrity with which they made themselves and the
means at their disposal available for so urgent and
distressing an emergency. Surely, however, the ques-
tions, Why so lute ? why so unprepared ? require some
explanation from the Health Committee. The approach
of 'cholera to our shores has been a matter patent to all the
world for months past—its actual and fatal presence in our
island has for several weeks been notorious throughout the
kingdom—the probability of its arrival in this town has
been discussed at the weekly meetings of that body whose
peculiar province it is to watch over the health of the
community—its positive outbreak among the ships in our
harbour found them quite unprepared. Hasty and panic-
directed efforts were, no doubt, made to meet the first
emergency, by converting a portion of the-workhouse into
a lazaretto; but after the lapse of several days, during all
of which deaths were occurring from the distemper, a
second crowd of pestilence-stricken strangers are landed
on our piers, seeking commiseration, shelter, and relief;
and the-only place yet discovered for their reception is once
more the workhouse, and even that in au-unprepared con-
dition ! Is this course of proceeding an indication of that
vigilance which the inhabitants of Liverpool have a right
to demand at the hands of her rulers ? These gentlemen,
as a body, are armed with powers amply sufficient to pro-
vide means for meeting such a contingency as the one now
under consideration; they are presumed to possess infor-
mation equal to the requirements of such emergencies—
the public advantage derived from their exercise of those
powers, and the application of that knowledge, has been
the- huddling and hurrying operations we have vainly
endeavoured to convey an idea of at Brownlow-hill.
In the meantime it is gratifying to know that the daily
returns from district medical officers do not indicate any
present tendency among our resident population towards
that scourge which oftener than once during the last
quarter of a century has swept over the world, leaving
mourning and desolation in its track ; but if there be any
value in segregating the sick from the healthy, or if any
safety is to be obtained by isolating parties or substances
who have been exposed to the.- contagious influence of
cholera from those who have been brought within the
sphere of its action, the Health Committee of Liverpool
have not, as yet, laid the community under obligation to
them for carrying such precautionary measures into effect.
Since the commencement of the disease up to last night
• at 9 p.m., there have occurred fifty-two deaths,—of these,
one took place yesterday.. In the course of yesterday
eight new cases were admitted into the hospital, seven of
these being Germans, and one an Irish boy, from the ship
Emma Field. Among the- fatal cases which occurred on:
Sunday, we regret to learn that one was from Wright-
street, Scotland-road. It is only fair to add that Messrs.
Baring Brothers and Co., agents for the vessel, have-
evinced the most lively desire to mitigate the sufferings- of
the patients by the Isaac Wright, and have signified their
intention to provide fresh sea-stores for the unfortunate
emigrants, and to make good any loss of clothing among
the female passengers. They will also 'give £2 2s. to every
man who assisted at the pumps. It was alleged that the
surgeon and portions of the crew, particularly a black
cook, greatly aggravated the sufferings of the sick and
helpless by the brutality of their behaviour; and it was
ruinoured that Captain Schomberg, the Government emi-
gration-officer at Liverpool, was about to lay the matter
before the magistrates ; but the manner in which Messrs.
Baring Brothers and Co., to Whom the conduct of a mixed
crew under peculiarly trying circumstances is in no way
chargeable, have come to the relief of the emigrants,
has satisfied their requirements,. and the matter will not,
as we understand, come before the public in an official
form. Most of them are what are termed " pre-paid pas-
sengers," a, e., their passages have been paid for them by
their friends.

PETER 11PGOVERNAN was, on Saturday, at the Police-
court, fined 10s. and costs for dealing in marine stores
at the docks without a license.
Join- RIMMER was, at the Police-court, on Saturday,
committed to prison for fourteen days, for stealing two
battles of rum, belonging to Mr. Bushell, from a transit
shed at the Prince's Dock.

THE PENSIONERS.—This gullant corps of veterans
assembled yesterday, for six days' drill, under Col. Swan.
They manoeuvre at the barracks in Birch-field, Islington,
on the same ground as the militia artillery.
SIR. JAMES MATESON, M.P., it is rumoured, is to be
raised to the peerage by the title of Lord Stornoway, and
is to be succeeded in the representation of Ross and
Cromarty by Mr. Matheson, of Ardross—who, it is said, is
to be created a baronet.
JAMES BURNS, labourer, aged twenty-five, was walking
with a fellow-labourer by St. Thomas's Church, Park-lane,
when a stream of blood suddenly gushed out of his mouth.
He was conveyed to his house, 49 Court, Tredwell-street,
where he died before assistance could be procured. The
deceased was an inveterate drinker, and the jury returned
a verdict of " Died from the effects of bursting a blood-
vessel, caused by excessive drinking."
LIBELS.-At the Bow-street Police-court, on Friday,
the Rev. Wade Martin Meara, a clergyman, was committed
for trial, on a charge of having circulated a malicious libel
upon the characters of the Hon. Craven Fitzhardinge
Berkeley, M.P. and his wife Charlotte, who is sister to the
defendant's wife. The defendant was likewise said to have
annoyed a Mr. Chamberlain, of Otterbourne, who had also
married a sister of his wife.
Wx have much pleasure in noticing the distinguished
honour just acquired by our townsman, Mr. Matthew
Collins, of the Mechanics' . Institute, whose ingenious
Theorem on the figure of the earth, has been deemed, by
pamphlet on Attractions, and on Claeraut's celebrated
the Royal Society of London, worthy of publication in
their " Transactions, " - and from which an abstract has
been copied into the 'London, Dublin and Edinburgh
Philosophical Magazine for the present month.
COUNTY REGISTRATION.—The revision of the list of
voters for the Southern Division of Lancaster was com-
menced yesterday, before W. Forsyth, Esq., and P. A.
Pickering, Esq., the revising barristers. The proceedings
presented no features of particular interest. The list for
Liverpool will be taken to-day.
TESTIMONIAL OF RESPECT.—The ladies connected with
St. Silas's Church have presented a very handsome set of
robes to the Rev. William H. Duck, chaplain of the Royal
Infirmary; with an address expressive of their high ap-
preciation of the faithful and zealous manner in which he
laboured whilst curate of St. Silas's Church, for nearly
three years ; and with earnest desires for his continued
usefulness in the ministry of the Gospel. We understand
the robes were made by Messrs. Dodgson, of Lord-street,
and are fully equal t 9 any we hive been &914 Q2ard