The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1872-05-29
THE SEAL FISHERIES.
GREAT DEsTRUCTr9N OF vEssEI.
AND FEARFUL LOSS OF LIFE.
Nearly 1000 Souls Unaccounted For
DETAILS OF THE DISASTER,
POVERTY AND RUIN IN NEWFOUNDLAND.
Supposed I.ass Of tlae Entire Fleet ans
Complete Rain OF the Fisheries.

/ New YoRK, May a7.-The following are
the names of vessels engaged in the seal
fisheries known to be lost off the coasts. OF
Labrador and Newfoundland during the
spring season, as ascertained by the New
York Times:
The Maid Of Judah. 81 men Spark, 102 /;
Bloodhound steamship, 1875; Eclipse, 80
Rover, 30; Retriever Steamship. $50 men,
saved X. G. y, 100 men, all hands per-
ished; Aurora, "a; Laplander, so; Witch
of the Waves, %; Edgar Doran, 102; Twin
Sisters, 90; Swan, 81; Terranoye, rs
Flash, 101; Leonora, 62; First Fruit, II;
Land of the Isles, IS Esquimaux, 104; Aus
ter, 81 Margurita, 40; Hawk (steamship),
l15; Emily Ames, 113; Meteor, 20; Iron
sides, 115; Lucknow, 9S; William and
Mary. 81 Pride of the Sea, III, all known
to be lost; Hector, 100; Brothers, 80; Ice
land steamship, 1G2 Hero, ~ Nightin-
gale, ID men, all known to be lost; -Balak-
lava, 10; Byzantine, 80: Herbert Luby, 9S;
Queen of the Isle, 96; Hunter, 80 men, all
known to have perished; Mary Jane, 43
Redman, 65; Home of the North, 132.
Others have not yet been heard from, but
all those recounted above have been totally
wrecked, and their crews have not been &c
counted for except in very few instances.
The few who were saved could not give any
definite intelligence of those they had lefi
behind them. Ont Of 1000 souls only seven.
ty-tife have been accounted for.
Most of these vessels were dashed to pieces
on icebergs and fields Of ice during ter.
rifle gale, which occurred on the night Of
April 11th. Many of them are insured In
American companies, and merchants in this
city and Massachusetts were largely inter
ested in the feet
The wholesale disaster spreads poverty
and ruin throughout Newfoundland, where
the victims nearly all belonged, rs well as The
vessels generally.
During the night of the hurricane the steam
ship Retriever and sixteen sail vessels were
hemmed in by high boulders and bergs of ice
over WHICH tremendous seas dashed high ant
wild. While this fleet hove to as last eifor
to survive the storm, many tossing crafts cll
down each other, and one fearful instance L
recorded wherein vessel, driven on an ice
berg by huge sea, fell back with mighty
crash upon the brig Twin Sisters, which lay
beneath the berg, crushing large number o
men to death and literally bursting the Twil
Sisters in two. The survivors of the crew
only fifteen out of niDety-eight, clung *
broken spars. and were by chance picked NJ
by the crew of the Retriever.
The day after the storm the ice opened ant
the Retriever made land, OH reaching whicl
she sunk and kccled over, but her crew sue
ceeded in escaping to the shore. She was
the only vessel that reached shore out of The
fleet of sixteen vessels i'll her vicinity during
the hurricane.
Hundreds Of the fleet are still to be heard
from, and their fate may be even as gloomy
rs that of the forty-one vessels Of which the
above account is given by the Times. The
ruin of the seal fishery is complete.
LATER--TnE REPORT NOT CREDITED.
Bo>ToN, MASS, May 2s.--The reported
wholesale desti uction Of the Newfoundland
sealing fleet is rot credited here. A letter
from St. Johns, n. F., by last mail says that
| twelve vessels in aIl were lost or missing
but the two or three missing ones have moi
been out SO long as to be given UP for lost
The crews of the vessels known to be de.
Stroyed were all saved except forty.tiye out
of sixty men on the brig Huntsman. Twenty
nine Of these men leave widows with about
100 children. Subscriptions were being
taken to obtain means for their support.