The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-05-27


he cannot escape being torn TO pieces and
scattered to the winds, Tribune, old hat white
coat dirty boots, etraw-bail bond, and all.
steamship Disasters-T,he Santiago dc
cuba and tho Wisconsin.
BrOm ne Times.
The wreck of the Santiago de Cuba, on the
Jersey coast, and that of the Wisconsin, on
Lake Ontario, will possibly stimulate, as such
occurrences sometimes do, a passing inquiry
into the progress we are making in the inn
provements of life-saving apparatus. There
is, usually, momentary excitement over a
calamity of the kind-if the attendant horrors
reach anything above the average. Neither
of the disasters named, however, present the
tragic element in such a light or with such
force as to greatly startle the public sensi-
bilities.
The Wisconsin caught fire less than three
miles from the shore, at the extreme end of
the lake, and ten minutes or less brought her
into shallow water There was no storm at
the time; the passenger list was small; two
fair-sized boats, promptly launched, might
have saved the whole of them and the crew as
well. The result, nevertheless, was the loss
of score or more of persons, who, finding no
means of escape from the raging fire around
them, jumped into the water and were
drowned. This itself was a fair foundation
for thrilling narrative; but the more harrow
ing details are thus far withheld. What we
know, aside from the general summing up of
the list of Victims is that as usual, the means
and facilities for escape were in inverse pre-
portion to the chances of safety offered
by favorable weather. The nearer to
safe landing place. the less pro-
vision against accidents is ordinarily
deemed necessary; the fewer hands, and these
of the least skilful kind; the smaller the
number of rowboats, and the meaner the ap-
pliances generally. For illustrations of this,
we need to go no farther than to the ferry
boats plying ON half the lines around this
island. The williamsburg boat that caught
fire few months ago was a fair example of
what is deemed proper equipment for craft
of the sort, and many of our lake and coast
ing and river steamers are scarcely any bet
ter prepared for the emergency of fire or col
lision, or an unusual gale. Few mature per-
sons have even yet forgotten the terrible dis
asters of the Reindeer and the Henry Clay
These were startling enough to live in peoples
memories for years. Are our guarantees for
the safety of passengers on the steamers en-
gagged in the coasting trade, or on our inland
waters, any better now than they were then
That seems to be a question really worth
some consideration. Turning from the Wis
consin to the Santiago de Cuba; here we have
a large ocean steamer that gets ashore in a
bly, owing to no fault of the officer in COM
mand. There is no storm at the time. The
vessel grounds near to the beach, where a
landing in small boats might be effected as
easily as. in any part of New York harbor.
Ii there was undue excitement or alarm
among the passengers, it was not due to the
stranding of the ship, or to the prospects of
the weather, or to the perils of effecting a
landing. 1t was an excitement and alarm, as
we gather from the reports published in Fri
days Times, due in great part to the con-
duct of the Captain aud his officers-to the
loss of all confidence in the management and
equipment of the vessel Some of the stories
and rumors respecting the motives of the
Captain may be unfounded, but there is no
getting over the fact that, under anything like
skilful seamanship, or the direction of sober
and judicious officers, not a single life need
have been lost
An investigation will show what provision
there was in the shape of small boats. But
let that provision have been what it may, the
fact that the vessel was fairly grounded in
calm weather, and in no danger whatever of
breaking up, makes it evident that the San
tiago de Cuba was in Indifferent hands, and as
unfit to be laden with passenger freight as if
every timber in her had been rotten to the CORE
The loss of the Evening Star brought into
notice the same sort of management. The
manning of that Inflated craft was disgrace
I
pline-mainly because the hands We're in
capable and too few in number, even if they
had been every one a trained seaman or me-
chanical engineer The hundreds of mise
rable beings that went down in the EUening
Star were simply sacrificed to the unconscion-
able greed of her owners. And to this COM
plexion careful inquest nearly always brings
us in these cases, old boilers, defective engines,
a rotton hull deficiency in the supply of
small boats, a scarcity of hands, the employ
ment of irresponsible landlubbers at nominal
wages, these are the great dominating evils in
many of our coastipg and inland steam lines.
They are evils which, if we tried to conceal
from ourselves, we could not conceal from
the outside world. They are evils, more
over, which are not to be eradicated by com
missioners sitting in judgment upon life-saving
apparatus, but by thorough Overhauling and
reform of our whole mercantile marine, and
by system of inspection which shall mean
something.
The Dominion of Canada.