Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1878-10-04

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would take good swimmer to reacl
the shores, but at night in the darkness
with scattering lights as beacons, th,
best swimmer might never succeed il
reaching land. He might swim TOWARD
the gasworks only TO find himself ther,
among the smooth iron pillars of
letty, with neither rope, nor chain, MOI
boat to grasp. He would sink in utteI
despair. Only q few swimmers reached
shore; even the best hardly got withou
the doomed circle, where 100 hands o.
the drowning clutched him and dragged
him below. Two brothers succeeded
in escaping the horrid circle by diving
One brave fellow jumped into the river
with his sweetheart on his back. He
swan bravely away, but his preciou,
burden was "clawed' off his back
and though he dived TO search for hel
again, he did not find her. The "in
cidents" of the disaster would fill 8
page.
went down yesterday to the scene
of the disaster, and the sights anC
sounds on the Thames and at Wool
wich were of most heart-rgndino
character. Dead bodies were being
recovered by the boatmen and taken &c
the various places in Woolwich and
other points. The scenes at the Town
Hall, where relatives came to identify
the dead, are of course terrible i'm sad
and even repugnant details.
At high water, when / visited the
scene of the disaster, not sign of the
boat could be seen, save slight ripple
in the river. Boatmen take visitors al
so much head to the point where the
vessel lies, twenty feet deep at low and
thirty feet ut high water. 1t is thought
that fully POO bodies will be found be.
low, where refreshments were served,
though it may prove that the Alice is
cut right in two, that the bodies have
been washed out, and are now floating
up and down with the tide on the bed
of the river. The boatmen and divers
were busy all day yesterday morning
in dragging up bodies with boathooks.
The bodies are found most terribly
distorted. The death struggles of the
drowned are awfully pictured on the
faces. Yesterday the bodies of six
women were recovered together. In
drowning they had clutched one an
other in agony, and not one could have
escaped from the terrible grip. One
governess reports the loss of seven
young girls who were under her care
for the day. Nearly hundred chill
dren were drowned. One of the res
cued passengers says that he never saw
so many children in arms before. Only
three or four young children are among
the saved; about thirty women and
fifty men. Three-fourths of the pas
sengers were probably women and
children. One man swan ashore,
caught hold of woman whom he
thought was his wife, swan ashore
with her, and then discovered that she
was a perfect stranger to him. Some
of those rescued are delirious. Whole
families are lost. have not noticed
the names of any Americans as having
been on board, though on the body OF
an elderly man named Wright was
found a letter from son in America,
and addressed A. Wright.
The accounts in the daily papers
TEEN with personal narratives of the
survivors of this terrible disaster. One
man managed to catch rope which
dangled from the bows of the bic
steamer, and actually hauled himself
up it, hand over hand, till he reached
the deck. 1t is no easy feat for an un-
practiced hand to go up thirty feet OF
slippery rope at any time, but death
and that horrid flood, ,wavy with human
hair, was beneath him, and gave him
strength to escape. There were few
who could get hold of the ropes that
were hung out from the Bywell Castle
but, strange to say, several women
were among those who clutched al
them. One of the survivors says that
when the Princess Alice went down he
jumped into the water, and, on rising,
swan to the side of the Bywell Castle,
and got hold of one of the ropes, to
which three girls and young man
were already clinging. The girls were
shrieking out, Lord Jesus save us. -
AS these five desperate people hung for
their lives to the friendly rope they
looked up to the bulwarks and thought
they saw man about to let the rope
go. That says the narrator, ''waS q
terrible moment for us, and we cried
out TO the man not to do it." Another
man, who lost his wife and three
children, caught hold of piece OF
wood and was in mortal fear lest ii
should be snatched away from kim by
the hundreds of men, women and
children struggling for life and shrek
ing in agony who surrounded him. He
was very nearly gone himself when he
was caught by two men of the barge
Charity, with the exclamation, "All
right, old fellow and dragged into a
boat. One poor man who was rescued
and taken TO the Essex shore was de-
!irious all night, shouting for his wife
and children; in the morning his mind
recovered its balance, and it was
found that he had lost his father, his
mother, his wife, and his four children.
1t is hard to see what more he could
have lost in this world. One young
woman, the survivor of family party
of four, was saved, no one knows how,
and she cannot tell, for she was found
wandering about the streets of Wool
wich quite crazy, uttering only at inter
walls the words, "Father-mOther. ~
. Tn,1,Io9l Cos. NJ V HoruId