The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-25
THE BOMBAY AND ONEIDA.

From the London Saturday Repiep.
1t would seem that nothing could be moro
gratuitous than collision between two of
the rare steamships that ply in Japanese
waters. When we learn that the collision
took place on a starlight night, and that the
officers in charge of either vessel made out
the lights of the other while they were still
from one to three miles apart, it is certain
that some one must be seriously in fault
Unfortunately, however, that question,
although the court of inquiry at Yokohama
inquired into it at great length, has become
entirely subsidiary to the graver one involved
in the subsequent conduct of the captain of
the English steamer, and we shall only no.
tice it incidentally in SO far as it bears upon
that. The charge of gross inhumanity
brought against Captain Eyre, of the Bonn bay
after having been negatived by the gentlemen
who Judged him in Japan, has been revived
before the tribunal of international opinion,
and most unluckily and unreasonably great
deal of national feeling has been imported
into it's consideration. The finding of the
Court of Inquiry has been criticized, its i'm
partiality more than questioned, and, speak
ing broadly, we can only regard its expression
of opinion on the evidence elected as light
for the public to decide by. From the begin
ming the story has been enveloped in mys-
terry which even now has been but very par
TALLY dispelled. The first accounts that
reached us by San Francisco were American,
and obviously exaggerated. They were the
versions of the rescued men, who, smarting
under natural sense of injury, were inter-
viewed by excited and imaginative reporters.
II was difficult to square them with facts or
with probabilities: impossible to reconcile
them with each other or even with them
selves. The Americans proved too much.
They agreed in asserting that they had seen
no one on the decks of the Bombay. We
felt certain that no steamer of the Peninsular
and Oriental Company ever was at sea with
out an officer of the watch and lookout
man, although one and the other might have
been culpably negligent. We knew that at
least there must have been a man at tho
wheel. The Americans ayerred that the colli-
sion had spared them only single life-boat
1t was evident that, if it occurred as was de-
scribed, it was impossible it could have in
flicted such wholesale damage on the ships
boats 1t was said that the Oneida had found
time to fire five of her six guns, and that the
reports were actually hoard at Yokohama. If
so, was it conceivable that those Signals of
urgent distress should never have reached
the ears of the officer of the Bombay, to say
nothing of his passengers, who must other
wise have been in a conspiracy to carry him
through scatheless? Moreover, we had the
telegraphic report of the fnding of the court,
and as suspension of certificate for six
months seemed punishment utterly made
quate to the imputed olfense, we were in
clined to assume the existence of extenuating
circumstances reducing Captain Eyres culpa-
bility to q mere mistake of judgment.
Now we have more detailed accounts of the
evidence upon which the Court of Inquiry
formed its opinion and pronounced its SEN
tence. We cannot say, as we have read it,
that it is by any means SO satisfactory as we
could have wished There was much direct
conflict of testimony; much, in the respective
stories of the captain of the Bombay and the
officer in charge of the Oneida for the time,
that is absolutely contradictory. The ques
tion became, in great measure, one of the rela
tive credibility of witnesses who spoke under
the influence of strong personal interest oi
feeling, and from diametrically opposite
points of view. If the statements of Mr.
Yates of the Oneida are to be accepted, those
o1 Captain Eyre OF the Bombay must be re
iected, for the two swore respectively to fact
that are physically irreconcilsble. It is truc