Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1872-05-17
Horrors of a Burning Ship.
TERRIBLE HOLOCAUST OF COOLIES.

In an editorial in the London Tele-
graph Of April %, occurs this state
ment:
A catastrophe, almost unparalleled in
horrors--disclosing the gross cruelties OF
the Macao emigrant trade by one last
and most terrible mountaineering
pened in the China seas last May, and is
recorded in parliamentary report just
published. A vessel, called the Don
Juan, SET sail on the 4th of that month
from Macao, bound to Peru, with six
hundred and fifty-hve coolies on board,
who had been kidnapped and shipped
under the flag and with the authority of
the Portuguese government. Once on
board, this large multitude was placed
literally in penned on the main
deck and fastened down by three iron
gratings, which closed the matches, ten
coolies at time only allowed to come
ON deck. The ship sailed in fair wealth
er from Macao. On the second day of
the voyage, as declared by Herker, an
Austrian seaman, the captain selected
twenty coolies and put them in irons,
With much brutality, as an example to
the others.
On the third day a difficulty arose
about the food passed down to the emil
grants. The interpreter got angry and
struck those who complained with his
cane, whereupon the wretched coolies
made rush at their European jailors.
The iron matches were Immediately
slammed back upon them, and when the
poor creatures beat upon the beams and
planks to get air, muskets We're fire
down into the crowd. 1t then appears
that, in desperation, some few OF the
coolies set fire to storeroom forward,
hoping no doubt to force the crew to
throw their prison open. The sailors
tried to pump down upon the seat of the
| conhagration, but the frenzied men be-
low passed the hose out of the port holes
so that pumping became became useless.
Then the fire spread beyond all control,
and volumes OF thick smoke rolled into
The main deck, choking the mass of cool
les at either end, who had taken no part
in the previous proceedings. Red
tongues of fame and suffocating clouds
Il led the ship below matches, while the
miserable prisoners beat at the iron graf
ings, tore at the tastenlngs of the deck.
and even endeavored to get up to the
air through the ventilators. The port
holes, however, were fastened, the dead
lights were too small to allow of mans
body passing, and the 9entilators were
barred SO that there was no escape.
In two hours time the fire was es
tablished on the main deck" which
means that scores of the Chinese had al
ready been roasted or smothered; ye
the crew never TOOK single step TOWARD
saving the lives Of the imprisoned
wretches. They merely lowered thre'
boats on their own account and pushed
off from the burning vessel, leaving al
that mass of human creatures pent in
floating hell Of fear and agony. TIL
sea calm; the matches might surely hav
been opened at the last moment; yet tn
Don Juan's captain and hands put o.
while the ship blazed, and while tn
coolies persisted inside with frIghtfu
cries and screams. The scoundrel mas
ter and crew saved their villainous live
, junk picked them up, and the sam
witness who tells this says that when tn
twenty Chinese in irons who were upo
the forecastle broke away their fettel
and swan towards the Junk, they wer
5 ruthlessly pushed off into the sea I
drown.
M ,antime, in their awful terror, tn
survivors of the six hundred and fifty
FIVE below found some means of burs
ing the fore-hatch. Scores we're by tb
: time killed by the flames or. the smoke
D scores had been trampled down in II
frerzied rush for life to the upper decl
About hundred in all at last emerge
t from that Golgotha of anguish, an
n and leaped at once into the sea. A fe
e managed to get hold of spars and fioa
a ing gear, and hung upon these till SON
! fishing boats picked them up next NOR
ing The majority were already mo
] tally injured when they escaped or we
e drowned, orcrusheG by thefalling chair
n and spars of the ship. But at least fiy
o / hundred were first scorched to death, {
choked and trampled dead, before IL
Internal prison-gate was forced by tt
e breaking open of the matches, which IL
= captain and crew had so shamefully lie
fast"