The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1893-04-13

.-N many safeguards
that are thrown
aronnd the ocean traveller vessels con-
tinue to get lost, the average marine
disaster is not as high as it was in days
gone by, nor are the wrecks of to-day
characterized by the same apal ing
loss Of life which as a rule distin-
guished those Of earlier times.
The Naval HydrogrRpher calculates
that in recent years there has been an
annual total loss of 2, 172 vessels repre-
senting in value about 100000, 900.
The annual loss of life is placed at
$4,000.
The loss of merchant and other
ships from various causes was esti-
mated at Lloyds in 1900 to be about
an average of 355 ships a year. In
1880 it was shown that CIT British YES
sells alone were wrecked during the
year, but the number of ships afoat at
that period was insignificant compared
with what it is now.
Subsequent years, particularly that
of 1859, were very disastrous to ship
ping. The year 1852 was more prolific
in marine disasters than any which
had preceded it. In the following
twenty-five wears it is estimated that
at least $1,000 wrecks occurred.
The long list of vessels whose loss at
sea was attended with frightful fatality
is led off with the British cruiser Mary
Rose, 60 guns, which upset in squall
in the year 1545, drowning all hands.
The next important wrecks were those
OF the Coronation, 90 guns; the Har-
wich, 20 guns, and the Royal Sovereign,
Stirling Castle, and Northumberland.
The 100-gun battleship Victory
drowned her crew of roo off the Isle of
Alderney on Oct. 5, 1744, and during
the same year the Namur, "a guns,
foundered in the East Indies, losing
all of hCr crew of 4S5 men except 26
persons. Almost at the same time the
60-gun ship Pembroke was wrecked off
Porto Novo, and $40 of her crew
perished.
104 guns, one of Admiral Rodney's
the disasters to the 74-gun ship Superb
the Cato, Admiral Sir Hyde Parker's
flagship, and the brig Indiaman, Count
Belgioloso, which went down OFF
Dublin Bay, drowning LAT of her pas
sengers and crew.
\ The wreck of the Indiaman Halse-
$50 persons to the bottom. The frigate
Pandora next drowned 100 of her crew
and then the British frigate Lutine
was wrecked off the coast of Holland.
Only one person was saved from the
wreck and he died before reaching
England.
During the next decade many trans
ports and men-of-war were lost The
frigate Ajax was destroyed off the Isle
of Tenedos, in which disaster $50 per-
sons perished. Soon afterward the
Prince of Wales and Rochdale, two
big British vessels, went ashore on the
Irish coast, drowning 300 of those on
board.
Scores of other disasters followed,
but one of the most pitiful of all was
the loss of the ship Amphitrite, bound
to New South Wales with female con-
victs on board. The vessel was lost on
Boulogne Sands, and out of 131 per-
sons on board only three were saved.
The dreary record of death at sea
without any effort being made to save
the voyagers is broken by the account
of the steamship Forfarshire. That
vessel went ashore during violent
gale, but through the efforts of the
Outer-Fern lighthouse-keeper, James
Darling and his heroic daughter Grace,
fifteen of the fifty-three who were on
board were saved.
The Protector, an East Indiaman,
went dowr with 10 of her 17s passen-
gers and crew off Bengal, and then the
transport Lord William Bentinck went
down off Bombay, taking recruits,
passengers and crew with her.
In the early '40s many vessels began
to go a-missing. The President,
steamship which sailed from New