Morning journal and courier., 1880-02-10

beach, or how helpless a vessel is on that shore with the wind against her. All along the coast are ships which tell the dreadful story of storm and wreck and death. It used to be that if ship got Jersey on her lee on stormy. night there was but little hope for her, but our Christian sentiment has dotted the coast with, life-saving stations, and the chances of rescue have greatly increased. Last Monday night there was 8 schooner of that coast that had come out from Hampton Roads on Sunday morning with a crew of six men, young and strong. As the wind rose the "boys' were called about 10 o'clock to take in the topsails, and before midnight the storm was on them in force, the air was full of snow and nothing could be seen ships length ahead. Knowing that they were near the shore the word was to 8 sailor on stormy night. so the captain took the wheel and the men stood by sheets and tackle, and just as she came up to the wind and was lying helpless, there suddenly gleamed out on them the red and green lights of another vessel, coming out from the thick snow, coming down on them like an averaging fate. There was no time for anything except to yell 'fPut the wheel up," but it was too late. There was an awful grinding crash, and in less than a moment the two vessels were parted again. One man had sprung from the Kate Newman, for that was her name, to the strange ship from which he saw his own disappear in the darkness,
 
 nd.nssf makes all flesh kin," in trying to save their vessel. She was sadly wrecked and before they could clear away they were in the breakers, go that young William Ray just es- capped from the ssKate Newman to be ship wrecked on the Harding, but the men from the life-saving station came with their nor tars and lines and saved all aboard, including the captains wife. The life-saving men had @ terrible night of it. out in the. blindine snow storm, on the edge of the breakers in the awful darkness, when the flying sleet was frozen into bullets and the flakes cut like knives, toiling to save the drowning sailors. They had carried their apparatus for miles through the storm, through creeks and inlets, sometimes up to the waist in water, in the sand and in the darkness, but they felt no la bor to be too great to save perishing human beings. Yet they didn't save all, for on the morrow, when the sea had gone down and the sky was as clear as though the storm had never ragged there, William Ray stood on the beach and looked across the waters to where the masts of his vessel stood above the waves, while at his feet laid the bodies of three of his sI1ipmates, dressed in their oil-skins as when he last stood by their sides, and their bruised faces upturned to the wintry sky. For them all storms were over; the surf that had rolled them to the shore, for them had lost its ter TOTS they had gone where the ''surges cease to rolP' and to God, who will judge the sailors tenderly. Three homes in Maine will mourn for those who were lying there on Monmouth Beach. There are worse sights in New Haven, places far more dangerous. Many night you can see 8 sailor lying at the head of the wharf drunk. Homeless friend less, his form all wrecked. his upturned face all bloated, little resemblance of 0 man in him, 8 castaway indeed, wrecked here on shoals more fatal than any in our seas. He is worse than drowned; he is lost. Yet he is somebody's boy, and long ago came e-or oy,I h k1ayk kS,1 1ar be saying in her anguish, if only knew my boy was dead I'd be content, but he Is dead to all that is noble and holy, dead to all that is pure and true. Better far for him if he were lying on the sand of Jersey Beach with his face to the sky, and he would have been hallowed in his death as another of the name less heroes who died at his post, as many sailors do, but now he is despised by all who pass him by. For this poor, lost class there are few life-saving stations on our coast. When sailor comes to our port, the first one to board him is s'runner' from some dance hall or thieving clothing store. He always has bottle of bad whiskey with him he's jolly fellow and so he gets the sailor into his clutches. There are gin mills on every cor ner, nearly, but where are the good places opened for him Within the past year the Ladies Seamen's Friend Society have opened @ reading room on Water street, and 8 noble work is being done, but it is quite mistake to have this one life-saving station, located in @ dark corner in sne of the most iccenveaie2t1 spots on water front. while the devil occr- pies some of the best places in the city, and we need ife-saving station for sailors and sailors only, and the sailors themselves are moving in it, and before long we trust there will be Bethel, sailors church, place where Jack can drop anchor at any time and feel that he don't intrude. The society have $1, ,OOO toward this end, and sailors friends have promised few hundred more, and all who realize how much they owe to this class of men for daily comforts and luxuries which aboundin their homes, should help towards this cause, to make the Bethel an accomplished fact.