The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-01-31
OCEAN STEAMSHIP DISASTERS.

The plain story OF the loss OF the
North German Lloyds ocean liner,
Elbe, has had no parallel for horror
since Her Majesty's battleship. Victoria,
struck 10 death by the Camperdown,
plunged to the bottom of the Mediter-
ranean.
IL was a causalty of heoric magnitude,
| appalling beyond comprehension. lmag-
inc this great ship with yawning hole
in her iron side, a fatal worxi made in
| an instant by steamer so small that the
liuer could almost have swamped her
under ordinary circumstances, settling
down steadily, slowly, but with fearful
certainty into the roaring waters,
shrouded in the blackness of the early
morning hours and four hundred helpless,
terrified human beings crowding ard
struggling ON her declss--and no possible
hope for ship or crew or passengers.
Itis sublime tragedy beyond the pen to
describe or the brush to picture or even
the brain to conceive. The laundering
of the Elbe will be recorded on the list
that mutely tells the story of the less OF
the Royal George, the plunge to death
| Of the Victoria, and the disappearance
of the President whose last story has
never been told.
1t is a long list, these ocean casualties,
even if we confne it to catastrophies that
have overcome tho steamers of the
Transatlantic service and limit again
that list to tragedies akin to that OF the
Elbe. Since the ill-fated liner President
left New York on March II, 1871, never
again to appear to mortal ken, nearly
one hundred fine ocean steamships have
been utterly destroyed while on
their passage across the At
lantic. OF these eight, after
leaving port, mysterious'y disappeared
and left no clue to the disaster which
overcame them. Twelve were run down
in collision, five were burned, one ran
on sunken ice in the Straits of Belle Isle,
another went down in field OF ice,
three foundered in mid-ocean, and the
balance of the melancholy list were
wrecked either on the Irish and British
coasts, on those of America, or on islands
OF rocks off shore. Ten Of these latter
ran in foggy weather on the shores
Of Nova Scotia or Newfoundland ON
their westward voyage. Only one, the
Iowa, an American steamer, was
wrecked on tho French coast near Cher
bourg in 1864. Only three or four Of
these casualties appear to have been di-
rectly due to the rage of the elements.
Miscahulation as TO distances run and
courses steered, clouded skies, dark
nights and, more than all, dense fogs,
were the primary causes of disaster.
The record from the loss OF the Presi-
dent to the sinking of the Utopia,
in 1891, and now TO the founder
ing of the Elbe, shows loss Of life of at
least 1000 persons. passengers and crews.
The Atlantic wrecked on Meagher's
Head, off the fatal Nova Scotia
coast, in 1873, carried down no less
than 562 persons. With the
City of Glasgow, which disappeared in
1854, the fate Of 4S0 persons is left in i'm
penetrable mystery. The President had
100 persons on board, and the Pacific,
which disappeared in 1856, carried 1856
persons into the dark unknown. The
magnificent City Of Boston. which dis
appeared in lS70-the last of the disast-
ers of this character. had 19l passengers
on board. When the Austria was burned
in 1852, in mid-ocean, 470 persons met
death. The Arctic was run down and
sunk in 1854, with a loss of 1898 lives; the
Schiller was wrecked on the Scilly Isles
in 1875, with a loss OF 81 lives, and the
Barussa foundered at sea in 1879, and
carried 209 persons down with her. The
Vile du Havre was run down in 1878,
and 226 persons We're lost with her.
That year, by the way, was terri
bic one in the history OF ocean steam
ships. No less than six large vessels
were run down, wrecked. or disappeared
in the 12 months. The Vile du Havre
and the Atlanta, wrecked on the Nova
Scotia coast, just these two ships, carry
ing down with them 7sS human beings,
the shipping loss that year reaching 2
per cent. of the vessels engaged in the
service. The Utopia, lost by collision
in Gibraltar Bay, carried 563 persons
down. The Naronic mysteriously dis
appeared in 1898 with 70 passengers and
crew.
1t is dreadful list, and yet, when we
consider that over a score of fleets, each
comprising sizable list of first-class
steamships, are engaged in the ocean
service, making their passages the year
around. the list of disasters is not
large one. In fact, the popular concep-
tion of the dangers of the sea is not
borne out by the actual casualties.