The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1878-10-03

| large, put fragile steamer, the frlhcess
! Alice, in which the latter was cut in
two, and sunk in less than three min.
utes. Few of all that multitude es-
capped, except such as were able to swim
though doubtless some strong swim
mers were dragged down by drowning
and desperate human creatures-''as
thick in the water" one witness said
"as a swarm Of bees" I am afraid
there was the usual amount of selfish,
savage brutality. 1t was unconscionsly
shown in the accounts of some of the
survivors. One says: II cannot swim,
but I managed to keep my head above
water until I was enabled to grasp a
rope, by means of supporting myself on
the bodies Of human beings, still afoat,
and by moving from one to the other"
What a ghast y causeway, what a d'ath
bridge to life, was that
Another survivor, one of the sort
who always survives, relates that he
was in the water with his wife and
child-he holding on to the anchor
chain of the Bywell Castle. He told
his wife to sacrifice the child, which she
held in her arms, and cling to him, or
she would be lost, but she would not
give up the baby, and so they both were
drowned. Verify, she chose the better
part. Yet there were several touching
incidents of devotion and self.sacrihce.
A story is told of one of the lost, a
young London manufacturer, which re-
calls The heroic death OF. the captain Of
the Northfeet. He supported in !he
water young American girl, to whom
he was betroshed, till he was nearly ex-
hausted, when a boat seemed coming to
their rescue. It was passing by, being
already over>6lled, but at his earnest
entreaty, Zone more" she was taken in.
When he saw her safe out of his failing
arms, he said: "Good>bye, dearest
Mary; we shall meet in Heaven" and
went down without a struggle. Hns-
bands and wives have been brought mp
closely clasped together- resisting the
rude divorce. of graphing hooks; mo h.
ers are found holding their childr"n,
the little ones having toys and dolls 10
their clenched hands
Yesterday family of four VT
raised and brought on shore, all firm ly
locked and interlocked together in the
strong embrace of death-of something
stronger than death. "Many waters
cannot quench love-" and the love that
can master the wild, selfish terrors aod
mortal agony of such moments. and hold
itsown and to its own. treads down the
deeps of death in the triumph ola blessed
Immortality. So awfully sudden was
the collision, anda so strangely slight tho
shock, that many of the passengers who
we're in the cabins, talking, eating aod
drinking-the younger portion playing
and singing in the last e5ullition OF
their holiday glee-could scarcely have
guessed what had happened, or had not
time to change sorg or laughter to
prayers, before they went plunslng
down, thus cofined together, into their
murky, watery grave.
Divers have been sent down, and 1t
is reported that owing to the density Of
the Thames water it is impossible lor
them actually to sec anything on board
One of them says that in the cabin IL
the after-part Of the ship he felt bod"
packed four and FIVE feet deep. Can
anything be imagined more horrible
than such blind cropping through the
dense and slimy water among tina
ghastly compauy-silent and cold anc
rigid, waiting in awful patience io'
their uplift to the light. but not th'
life of the upper world Little children
were under his feet everywhere, an
babies floating against him as gent.
rs seaweed in the restless wartery dark