The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1884-07-04

Human nature can be subjected TO NO
more agonizing suspense than that en-
dured By relatives and friends who !,
snxiously await the arrival of an over
due ship on board of which some one
dear to them has taken passage from
distant port. On the 18th of March,
1S41, the President-one of the finest
passenger steamers of her time-left
New York for Liverpool with many
passengers on board. Three or four
DAYS after her departure she encoun-
tered q terrific tornado not far to the
south of Cape Race. and was seen by =
French sailing vessel to enter thick
cloud or rain-storm, which brooded up
on the face of the deep and otscured
the heavily-laboring vessel from view.
In half an hour or so the cloud lifted.
but no President met the anxious eyes
of the gazers. who, in the phrase OF
French mariners. Intercepted the
horizon" in search of the missing OBJ
ject. There was no possibility OF her
having run into an iceberg or come in
to collision with another ship; but
against her name in the underwriters
books were inscribed those melancholy
words which. we are told, ought never
to be employed in connection with .
well-built and well-manned craft of any
kind, s.foundered at sea-" No trace OF
her existence was ever found. except .
few spars and part of boat believed to
have belonged to her, which were
washed ashore after some weeks upon
the coast of North Wales. Among many
other passengers of note whom she car
ried were included Tyrone Power. the
well-known and universally popular
Irish comedian, and Lord Fitzroy
Charles George Lennox, second son of
the late and brother of the present Duke
of Richmond. Lord Fitlroy Lennox
was an officer. in the guards. and was
on his way home from Canada in the
expectation of passing his twenty-irst
birth day on the following 18th of June
with his attached parents. He was his
mothers favorite son, and was named
after Fitzroy Somerset, subsequently
Lord Raglan. who had been his fathers
friend and fellow-soldier on the Duke
of Wellington's staff during the PENN
sular War. There are many still living
and among them none tells the story
with more feeling than the venerable
and much-respected Earl of Stafford
who well remember the long and pro-
tracted agony of hope and suspense
which the late Duchess of Richmond
| was doomed to endure. Some of those,
| indeed. who knew her best, and were
acquainted with the singular depth and
warmth of her affections. held the opin-
ION that, to her dying hour, the bereaved
mother refused to give up all hope that
she might once again be blessed with, 3
| sight of her lost son. That hope was
not destined to be realized; but among
the mourners who year after year await
ed that message nom the sea" which
was never to be received. the late
Duchess of Richmond will always occu-
py foremost place.
Steam VOYAGES backward and for
ward across the Atlantic have latterly
been performed with such marvellous
safety, and in some cases, with such
astonishing rapidity. that the present
| generation of residents in the old and
new worlds are far less prepared than
their predecessors for the loss of q pas
senger steamer at sea. Yet the records
of that greatest highway of maritime
nations, the North Atlantic Ocean.
proclaim that during the first thirty
years Of steam navigation voyages were
very far indeed from being as safe as Is
now the case. Thus we learn from the
Nautical Gazette, of New York, that
from the beginning of 1S41 to the end
Of 1873 no fewer than forty eight At
lantic steamers persisted at sea, the
President being the first and the Vile
du Havre the last victim. During these
three and-thirty-years the Cunari Com
pany lost the Africa and the Tripoli,
but in each case without the sacrifice of
life or letter; while, between 1851
and 1873 the Inman line lost six. the
most melancholy case being that Of the
CITY of Boston, whose fate is still q
mystery. The Allan line, again, which
commenced in 1852. was so unfortunate
as to lose seven vessels before 1874 The
Collins line, built and owned in the
United States, ran four vessels between
1852 and 1857, of which they lost two.
The German companies of Hamburg
and Bremen, established in 1855, had
lost four steamers before 1874; the Ma
tional line, one; the Guion, established
in 1868, one; the Anchor. one; and the
White Star line established in 1871, has
also lost one, through the fault of
her captain. Twelve steamers be-
longing to smaller companies have
likewise met their doom on the
boisterous Atlantic; while of the French
companies, the Messageries MaritimeS.
with sixty steamers, had in 1874 lost
fourteen vessels during its first twenty
one years of existence; and the Com
pagnie Transatlantique lost two, the
Darien and the Vile du Havre. The
ROYAL Mail, with which the Compagnie
Transatlanti9ue is in competition, lost
fifteen ships during the first twenty-five
wears. 1T has been computed" adds,
however, The National Gazette of New
York, that upward of sixteen thou
sand VOYAGES were made across the At
lautic between 1o40 and 1874 by these
steamship lines" Among the disas-
tiers to which we have referred none
was more calamitous than those which
overlook the Allan Liner, Hungarian.
wrecked off the coast of Nova Scotia
in the night of February ~ and 20.
1860. with more than two hundred
souls on board, and the White Star
steamer Atlantic, which struck q rock
off the same iron-bound coast on April
1S, 1878, carrying at the time more
than . thousand souls, of whom AZ,
including Captain Williams, were saved,
and 565 were lost. Many of her hap
Less human freight who had climbed
into the rigging persisted from cold and
suffering, and the Captain upon whom
the chief blame was laid, underwent q
sentence of suspension for two years
We have said enough to show that