The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1872-11-14
The Loss Of the Missouri.

For the third time within two short
months we are called upon to chronicle
the total loss at sea, and amid the most
fearful circumstances, of an American
passenger steamer. In this case, as IN
both the preceding cases, the first ac-
counts which reach us of the disaster are
of a nature to mingle'indignation with
pity. In this case, as in both the preced-
ing cases, we have small reason to hope
that future and more full details will
tend to mitigate either our indignation
or our pity. And how idle and how
fruitless must either emotion prove Our
pitywill never bring back to life one
man, or woman, or helpless child from
those awful gulfs of flame and flood in
which first the Bienville, then the Amer
lea and now the Missouri have disap-
peared.
That any word whatever has reached
us of the loss of the hapless steamer, the
Missouri, that one soul has escaped alive
to bear intelligent witness of the dread
event and its causes, we owe an lnhablt-
ant of the British colony of Eleuthora, In
the Bahamas. This passenger 1T was
who succeededin launching, in reaching,
and in bringing safely into port the only
boat which we have any reason to hope
will ever be heard from. A dozen others
who of their own motion and by their
skill in swimming were able to get with
him into this boat were saved. All the
rest of that miserable ships company,
among them invalid women and children
fleeing from the rigors of Northern
winter, went down in the waves or were
stifed in the conhagration which caught
her IN like straw in tho blast of n fur
mace.
To tell us that the commanding officer
of vessel which perisbed thus and thus
utterly was brave man and a good oth-
Ger, and that he did all that could be
done to save her, is to tell US as plainly
as language can put it that TIE vessel
was unworthy of her commander, and
that she had been sent to sea fro.m a
country in which proper laws existed
looking to the security of passengers and
in which public opinion existed intel
ligent enoug and strong enough to see
those laws enforced.
We do not dwell-we repeat that we
have no heart to dwell-upon the mere
heart-rending horrors of this dreadful
story. The imagination pictures them
all to readily, all to wildly. The out
bursting fury of the flames the bewil-
dering, volleying, choking volumes of the
pitchy smoke; the bowling of the gale
the savage welter, the deafening thunder
of the waves; the sickening sense OF ut
ter helplessness the cruel clamor and
mad mob of the headless, undisciplined
crew, making hopelessness more hopeless
every moment-to dwell on these thing:
is but dreadful mockery in the ears OF
men who have made all these things pos.
sible by their own wilful folly, their OWL
wilful selfshness, their indifference tc
law and to honesty, their lack of public
spirit. We feel them to-day with
thrill and shudder. Tomorrow we &C
our ways, this man to his business, thai
man to his pleasure, and straightway
forget that such things were. A West
field explodes at our very wharves, max
ing dark the bright summer Sabbath will
a sudden, indescribable horror; Nett
goes down beneath the waves of tn
: Sound within sight almost of the dan
. GERS and within sound of the music at tn
gayest haunts of opulence and ease;
. Bienvile and a Missouri sink Kissing il
> the waters which divide us from our pur
r pie dream of the alth-giving. lovely
y luxurious tropics. We are stirred for
D moment to pity; We glow for momen
!, with indignation. But the pulses of on
passion subside unfulfilled in purpose G
g in deed, even as the waves that hav
swallowed up our dead in the midnigh
b and the storm laugh away every trace {
!, them forever in the sunshine of the blu
l unremembering morrow. - Neao Yo'
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