New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-03-12
PERILS OF THE DEEP.

Freezing to Death i'm Mid Ocean.
From the New York Heraldl
The recent heavy gales will doubtless
cause many serious disasters along thf
coast and the public may be prepared fol
tales of suffering, owing to the piercing
cold which prevails. 1t is some copsola
ton. however, to think that the ocean IL
still traversed by some noble seamen, VINO
when chance or Providential intervention
throws a rescue in their way, no risk Oh
pain or hardship will deter them from al
least attempting to save their suffering
brethren, whom i'll luck or accident may
have left to perish in the storm. And YET
there are Others, happily a small minority
who, destitute of ali feeling, and wrapped
in their own seltishness, care little what be
comes of the drowning mariner, and would
scarcely 90 point out of their. course tc
resnond to the cries for held and snccor A
case in point is furnished by the sad
catastrophe which befeu the schooner
Harry Conrad
The sufferings of her shipwrecked crew
are described as narrowing in the extreme,
and had it not been for The humane, promp,
and manly action of Captain G. NJ. Walker
the Old Dominion line, they must have
been lost 1t appears that the Albemarle
left Norfolk on Monday evening at p. NJ
Four hours later it commenced to blow a
gale from the northwest, and continued in
violence until the following evening. About
! p. NJ on Tuesday, Captain Walker, when
off Cape May, sighted three-masted
schooner, sunk, bearing north by west.
Without hesitation the captain at once ran
down toward the schooner, and, to his sur
prise, found small boat made fast to one
of the masts, containing six men and one
woman, all of whom were stark and stiff,
while the little boat itself, was constantly
shipping water, and tossing about at the
mercy OF the waves. Not in the course of
his long and varied experience has Cap
tain Walker beheld such a leart-rending
spectacle.
The occupants of the boat, who were
almost doubled up, were rapidly sinking
into a state of nnconsciousness, and it was
evident that if not already gone to their
last homes, their hours were numbered. AS
the Albermarle drew nearer it was per-
ceiyed that every person in the boat had a
coating OF ice on over halt foot thick, and,
already benuinbed and frOst-bitten, they
were for time deaf to all interrogatories.
At length Captain Walker came up quite
close to the sunken schooner, and, with
stentorian voice. hailed them to cut adrift.
As if aroused from deep slumber, and many
luton, CLEAN Of hope frightened for mo-
ment the prospects of the dying crew, and
a simultaneous effort was made to obey the
kind command But their powers were
gone, and in the effort to relieve themselves
they fell back in the boat in a senseless
condition
One man, however. who sat in the bow,
reused to last desperate attempt to save
his life seized an axe with his frOst-bitten
hands, and, by one vigorous stroke, cut the
rope that SO long had enchanted them to
death Thus freed, the little boat, with its
perishing occupants, dropped alongside the
AIbemarle, and they were taken through
the port on the lee side. They presented a
most helpless and forlorn spectacle, and it
was thought that very few of them would
survive the terrible ordeal through which
they had passed. But the usual remedies,
including stimulants and the rubbing of ice
on the hands and feet of the sufferers, were
quickly applied, and with the great and I'M
renting attention bestowed upon them by
CAPTAIN Walker and the purser of the AL
bemarle the poor patients gradually re-
turned to consciousness. And then came
the story Of the wreck. The vessel lying in
seven and a half fathoms of water was the
three masted schooner Harry Conrad, Cap
tain Parker bound from Baltimore to New
York, laden with coal.
At eight o'clock on Monday evening when
in the midst OF the storm, she was run into
by an unknown schooner and in an hour
and a half afterward went down. Deserted
by the instrument of their destruction-for
alter the collision the unknown schooner
made of. her captain Indifferent to the ca
lamity he had cause.-the crew of the
Harry Conrad were compelled to take to
the small boat: but unable to row in the
storm. attached her to one of the masts to
await the dawn of day. The gale did not
subside, and, as it was freezing bitterly, the
suffering of the crew commenced near mid
night, and for sixteen long hours they sat
starving and perishing from the cold.
Their last hour had come when rescued
by Captain Walker, and it is needless to
state that the timely and generous
action of that humane commander will
win the admiration of the community, while
the cowardly fight of the craven who did
damage Will doubtless bear its own reward.
1t is to be hoped the name OF the unknown
schooner will be discovered and the censure
placed where it is due. Captain Walker,
by the way, formerly commanded the
steamship Fulton and effected the clever
capture of the blockade runner Margaret
and Jessie. The Albemarle arrived here
Yesterday and landed the trost-bitten crew.
The woman was the daughter-in-law of
Captain Parker, who owned $4,000 in the
Harry Conrad, the total value of which
was $4,000, uninsured. Most Of the crew
were forwarded to Connecticut, where they
reside. Captain Walker states that the
sunken schooner lies north by west eight
miles off Cape May, in seven and a half
sells going up and down the coast.