Sacramento daily record-union., 1888-08-24


b gentleman one of the passengers on
the Oceanic, writes the following vivid de-
scription of the terrible scene which en-
sued on the collision. His name, at his
request, is not mentioned:
"The Oceanic was steaming slowly along
when shock, sudden, but by no means Sc
we're, was felt by those below it was as
though she was rasping herself against
some inconsiderable object-a sensation
much the same as that experienced when q
ship goes alongside wharf or hulk, with
fend-offs down. Rushing on deck the
scene before the observer was stirring and
horrible-one never to be forgotten A
steamer athwart our bows, evidently set
ling down even to Impractical eyes; boats
being lowered from the doomed ship so
hastily and recklessly that capsize seemed
inevitable; men and women rushing over
the bows, looking back with dread anlicipa-
ton of the fate awaiting those they had
left behind.
ION the deck of the sinking ship were
men and women moving aimlessly about,
their faces calm and expressionless, blue
livid coloring the only indication of the
horror with which they were filled The
bows sank lower and lower, and the stem
shortly stood erect Hardly had launched
boat fell clear when, with great plunge
and bissing groan, the City of Chester
Srnk from our view, not more than five
minutes, probably, from the time she was
struck.
Then followed a scene exceeding in
ghastiiness anything that imaginative real
ism could approach; planks and wreckage
shooting up TO the service, with here and
there a struggling human form among
them; women standing stunned and daZed,
looking wildly and beseechingly round for
friends, who, but five minutes before, were
standing by them on the deck of the now
sunken ship.
The boats came alongside with the res
cued; hurry and excitement ensued; efforts
to hoist up those nearly lifeless with ex-
haustiop; shouts to get the women on board
first; an apparently lifeless body from a
small fishing-boat among the rest. Pain
full was the position of the many spectators,
who, thinking only of how they could
render assistance, were forced to stand idly
by.
The arrival of those who had come off
unscathed lent yet more terrible aspect to
the scene as they shook hands, and laughed,
and .coarsely jested, with the relish of ordi-
nary existence, natural and unblamable in
them, under the nervous excitement of the
moment but inexpressibly CHASTITY to a
spectator, with signs of anguish and
brute suffering as were elsewhere apparent
around him.
Throughout the blending of the coarsely
commonplace with the pathetic was what
constituted the chief horror of the catas-
which the realism of Zola
could hardly approach, or the pen of a
Dickens fully describe.
1t is pleasanter to dwell upon what
followed. Assistance is restoring the
numbed and apparently lifeless was given
unstintedly, and, with one painful excep-
ton, the efforts made were successful.
Faces. coarse in themselves, appeared so no
longer when bending anxiously over those
suffering forms; natures, probably uninter-
esting in everyday life, displayed their
best and brightest sides. There was one
tending little insensible child; anxious
and distraught though she was about some
missing friends, she threw herself with all
her might into working where work was
needed. Those who were in terror for the
fate of their missing ones land there were
many such), were being soothed with the
best of sympathy-that which is real and
unaffected.
The disaster will never be forgotten bv
those who witnessed it, but some not alto
gether unpleasant recollections NAV be
associated for them with it nevertheless.
Let US hope that they may succeed in for
getting the scene in its more painful as
pect, and think only of it as of an occasion
when they saw something of what is best
in our common nature; something of what.
whenever and wherever it may be lone, is
always true and lovely and of GOOD re-
port"