The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-03

Editorial Opinions Of the Leading Journals
Upon Current Topics-COmpiled kverV
Day for tho Evening Telegraph.
THE MISSING STEAMSHIPS.

THE MISSING STEAMSHIPS. ..
From the NJ Y. Times.
1t is now thirty-fve days since the City
Of Boston sailed from Liverpool, and forty
since the Schmidt sailed from Bremen. The
anxiety of those who have friends on board
these ships is fast sinking into despair, and,
while we would gladly counsel them to hope
as long as hope is reasonable, the figures of
the underwriters imply what it is idle to
affect to conceal Both ships may be safe,
but it is not very likely that either is still
ahoat. The melancholy probability is that
their names will be added to that list of
calamities to great steamers which, consid-
ering the chances of the seas and the num-
bers of such vessels, has been SO wonderfully
short. There is, however, room to trust that
their passengers may still live, since total
disappearance with the loss of all en- board
has been among the rarest of disasters re-
corded of ocean steamships.
The President, which left New York March
II, 1S41, having among her passengers Ty-
rome Power, the comedian, son Of the Duke
of Richmond, and other noted persons, is in
this dismal catalogue, and SO is the City of
Glasgow, lost in 1854, and the Pacific in 1856;
but we recollect no other vessels of similar
character that have so vanished and ''left not
q rack behind" Consequently the chances
would seem to be that, as in the cases Of the
troopship Birkenhead, and the packets st.
George, Central America, Sarah Sands, Aus
tria, Anglo-Saxon, and London, greater or
less number of the passengers of the two
missing craft may have been saved Such, it
will be remembered, was also the fact as re-
CARDS the Lady Elgin, sunk by collision on
Lake Michigan, September 8, 1860. OF
her 1856 passengers, 287 perished, among
whom were Mr.. Herbert Ingram, M.
p, the founder of the Illustrated London
News, and his son. Of the passengers and
crew of the Hungarian, on the other hand,
which was wrecked on the coast of Nova
Scotia, February 10 of the same year, all on
board were lost. The Birkenhead, wrecked
off Simon's Bay, South Africa, February 26,
1862, lost 454 and saved 1874. The st. George,
which was bound from Liverpool to New
York, and was destroyed by fire at sea, De-
cember "a, 1862, lost 81, while 20 were
rescued and taken to Havre by the American
ship Orlando. The Central America, which
foundered on her way from Havana to New
York, September II, 1857, carried $40
OF the 539 on board the Austria-burned
in the middle of the Atlantic, September
13, 1858-but 81 survived. The Sarah
Sands, which sailed from Portsmouth
for Calcutta in August, 1857, took fire
in November, and afterwards experienced
tremendous gale, carried all on board safely
into port. The Anglo-Saxon, wrecked on a
reef off Cape Race during dense fog, April
q, 1868, lost 237 out of 446 individuals.
The London, which foundered in the Bay of
Biscay january IL, 1866, on the passage
from England to Melbourne, lost 220 lives,
among whom were DR.. Woolley, Principal
of the University of Sydney, and Mr.. G..
V. Brooke, the tragedian. Two instances
have befallen during the past few years,
when the romantic incident, SO much used
by novelists and dramatists, of a single life
being saved from among all on board lost
ship, has really been exemplifed. These
were in the cases of the Dalhousie, wrecked
off Beachy Head, October 10, 1858, and the
Dunbar, wrecked off Sydney, August 20, 1857.
In the latter instance the survivor was
thrown by a gigantic wave into tiny aper
ture high up in the face of precipice-the
chance of such a thing occurring being about
the same as that of throwing pea into a
nail-hole in the side of q wall-where he lay
insensible for many hours, but was finally
discovered and saved by daring fellow, wht
caused himself to be let down from the top O
the acclivity by ropes.
The facts we have named, and others tha
might be cited, indicate strong preponder
ance in favor of the supposition that evel
should the City of Boston and the Schmid
have been overtaken by calamity, many ant
perhaps all of their passengers and crews ma
have been saved. We do not, however, lik
to abandon the hope that a joyful Telegram
may vet fash over the Atlantic cable, an
nouncing that these fine ships themselves, q
well as those who entrusted their lives
them, are still above blue water. r...