The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-05-09 00:00:00

THE ORDNANCE ESTIMATES.

Mr. MoNsELL moved the supplemental ordnance esti-
mates involved in the •votes already. agreed to, explaining
the nature of the different items, amounting in the whole
to £742,132.

These votes were agreed to with.very little discussion.
RAILWAY MANA.GEZIENT.—The house went into com-
mittee upon the Railway and Canal Traffic Regulation
Bill, the clauses of which were agreed to with amend-
ments, two new clauses being. added to the bill.—The
Exchequer-bills Bill and the Militia Bill likewise went
through committee.
The house adjourned at a quarter before two o'clock.

APPALLING SHIPWRECK.

LOSS OF TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY LIVES.

Tan New York pipers, just received, contain accounts
of a distressing shipwreck on Long Beach, New Jersey.
The Powhatan (Captain Meyers), of Beltimore, with 200
passengers on board, bound from Has re to New York,
was cast ashore aboUtmidway between Barnegat and Eyf
Harbour inlets, on the night of Saturday, April 15. A
correspondent of the .3Vetv York Herald thus describes
this dreadful calamity :
'` When first discovered by Captain Jennings, pf Long
Beach, which was on Sunday morning, she lay with her
head to the south, the decks were crowded with passen-
gers, and the sea was making a clean;hreach over her.
The wind blowing a perfect gale from the north-north-
east, the waves ran mountains high, twisting the ship
about in the sand as :if she- were merely a cork boat.
Seeing the condition of the vessel, Captain:Jennings, who
is stationed as a wrecktinaster on the beach, sent all the
men that were at his .coramand, though a mow storm was
raging violently, to the Government House, in order to
bring down the life-ear, and other wrecking apparatus,
and stood on shore himself watching, the effects of the
billows upon the ill-fatethvessel. HrA. after hour slipped
by, but the men did not ,return with the life-car. The
vessel became uneasier, and many unfortunate people were

swept off by the heavY surf. About five 41ocii, p.m.,
one immense wave washed fully 100 persons ,overboard,
who were carried away down the beach by the undertow.
Some of them came ashore, and were picked up lifeless by
Mr. Jennings, who searched in vain amongst thexumber
for a survivor; hut all hatlibreathed their last before they
reached the beach, being awfully mangled by the force of
the waves pushing them :against the hull of the messel,
and throwing them with violent force upon the beach.
" At this time Captain Meyers, who was on the deck of
the Powhatan all this while, called out in a loud voice to
Mr. Jennings, entreating himde try and save some of those
who might be washed 'ashore. Captain Jennings replied
that all. those who came ashore were dead, and that it was
no use looking for them, as they were all killed before they
got out of the water.
. _

"About seven o'clock the ship's masts went by the
board, and almost immediately afterwards the hull burst
in two, and every soul on board was launched into eternity.
The sea presented a black mass of human heads and float-
ting pieces of the wreck, but in a few moments all had sunk
'to rise alive no more. The beach was strewn with the
.dead bodies of women and children, pieces of the wreck,
the baggage of the passengers, and empty casks. Nothing
remained to mark the spot where the ill-fated ship had
gone ashore, except surging waves;beating upon a fragment
.sf the hulk which lay upon the beach.
' The crying of the drowning men,and the shrieking of
the women and children was hushed—all lay in the deep
ntunbered with the dead, while the wind Nailed loud and
mournfully, adding still more horror to the awful catas-
tropke. All had sunk—captain, officers, ;crew, and pas-
sengers, of 250 persons—not a soul was left total the tale.
No aid .came from the Government House that night, and
Captain Jennings was compelled to remain there by him-
self, a lonely watcher of the dead.
" On Monday morning four men arrived from the sta-
tion-house., but their help came too late. The storm, it
seems, was so severe that while on their way back to the
wreck on 'Sunday, with the life-car and mortar, two of
them fell down exhausted, and the whole party ,were
obliged to return nearly frozen to death. This P4rti of
men, under the command of Captain Jennings, set imme-
diately about finding and gathering together those bodies
that had been washed ashore. In the short space of an
hour nearly 20 women and children were found almost
naked, scattered along the beach, some of them dreadfully
bruised and cut.

"One man was found about 60 yards from the beach,
upon the sandhills, with a child in his arms ; and from
his condition it is supposed that he alone of all on board
reached the, shore alive, and crawling out of reach uf the
waves, in order to save his own life and that of the infant
in his arms, fell down exhausted on the sand, and was
frozen to death during the night. The child was firmly
locked in his arms, quite dead, and appeared as if it had
also died ashore from exyosure.

" The whole of this day was spent in searching for the
bodies of the unfortunate people. But one man was found
among the niimber, all the rest behig women and children.
They appeared to have been in excellent health, with rosy
cheeks and smiling faces, looking as if they were asleep
rather than dead: They were all laid side by side, until a
boat could be got to carry them to the shore.
‘ On Thursday 22 bodies were removed from the beach
to the village of Manahawkin. These consisted of one
man and 21 children, all apparently, by their features,
seeming to be Germans, the women who had any clothes
on being dressed in coarse materials, with heavy shoes,
some of them wooden ones. All the dead were conveyed
to an outhouse of Squire Peckworth's, where they re-
mained until coffins could be made for them. This
melancholy task of making reception for the dead occu-
pied the attention of the men residing in the village,
while the women were busily employed in washing the
bodies and laying them out, preparatory to their being
placed in the coffins. Too much praiSe cannot be awarded
to the inhabitants of Manahawkin for their zeal and in-
dustry in giving a decent burial to the dead.
" Our reporter visited the dead house, where lay in
tiers, one above the other; women and children, presenting
a shockiiik; and painful sPectacle.. The whole evening
was spent in making coffins and shrouds; and it was not
until midnight that these kind-hearted people desisted
from their labours, which were trying in the extreme."
'Two schooners were wrecked at, the same time as the
Powhathn ; 200 bodies were washed ashore.

THUNDER STORM AND LOSS or LIFE.—On Tuesday
last, between one and two o'clock in the afternoon, Leeds
was visited by a storm of lightning, thunder, and rain.
The visitation .was of brief duration, but of a severe
character, and proved fatal to two men, and seriously in-
jured several others.
EXTENSIVE ROBBERY. The extensive premises of
Messrs. Charles Brook and Son, of Meltham Mills, near
Huddersfield, have been broken into, and a large iron
fixture safe was blown open with gunpowder, and Bank
of England notes, Bradford and Co., £5 notes, with gold,
silver, and sundry bills of exchange, amounting to £3OOO,
were stolen. Everything connected with the affair shows
that the robbers' were no noviCes, and that. they were
pretty well acqpintecl with the premises,

33IRT_FIS, MARRIAGES, and DEATHS.