Morning journal and courier., 1880-06-30

Those who went to the rescue describe the I scene as horrifying, the half burned and 1 scorched human beings running about the steamer afraid to leap into the water and ap- parently too crazed to save themselves. The half burned and insensible found floating in the water were rescued and every thing known to human skill was done by the doctors of the island hospitals for those burned. The nurses of the hospitals and employees on the islands opened their wardrobes and gave freely of their clothing to the sufferers
 Charles A. Dana, editor of the Sun, who was on board, makes the following state ment: The fire broke out when the steamer had reached the head of Wards Island and was in what is known to boatmen as Hell Gate. The captain did the best he could. If he had run his vessel in anywhere else she must have gone to pieces on the rocks. Besides the water being so deep it would not admit of landing elsewhere. He was most heroic fellow and stuck bravely to his post. The large loss of life was due altogether, I think, to the people themselves. Those who retained presence of mind and obtained life preservers for themselves were saved, but many jumped off too soon and were drowned, and some jumping off forward were sucked In under the wheels and so met their death. Others remained on board and were burned. Benjamin w. Hitchcock was with me and jumped off when did One man was com pletely burned to a cinder and all saw him.
 
 who was so much charred that nothing much more remained than his false teeth I can not give any estimate of the loss of life. There were I think 250 passengers on board. Some of the women leaped into the water so great was the panic among them. I at first swan away from the boat, which thought might blow up at any moment.
 The vessel was burned to the waters edge. A terrible scene presented itself as a reporter picked his way over the charred hulk. On the starboard side nearly on a level with the water's edge bed of cinders and iron containing the remains of two human beings, who will probably never be identified, for the remains bore resemblance to nothing more closely than chunks of burned meat Heads and limbs alike were welded by the heat into a very small compass indeed. The bodies lay about eight feet apart On top of the hori- l zontal boiler, the ordinary position of which 1 was directly beneath the main forward deck, 1 were the bones of third victim. How he l got there is a mystery unless indeed he fell | through the burning deck and there met his l fate, a thousand times more horrible than l death by drowning. Under the mass of ruins | that spreads out from the hulk it is thought ! several other bodies will be found
 It is now believed the total loss of life to l be close to fifty. It is known that great 1 number jumped overheard in Hell Gate be- l fore the vessel was run aground, and it can not be presumed that all were able to reach | the shore Boatmen and others who wit l messed the disaster think that fully fifty were lost by drowning. The tide was running ebb | at the time, and-it is probable that in the | course of few days bodies of the drowned will be cast up in, the bay or on Staten Isl and. All the patients from the disaster at the Homeopathic Hospital but two were dis charged to-day, being sufficiently recovered. to be removed to their homes. In the hospi- al on Randall s Island four still remain under ;roAtmont Over fifty n0rSOnS callad nt the ] stands and police stations to-day to inquire about missing friends, and of these about iwenty say positively that the persons sought were on the Seawanhaka.