Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1902-01-31
No TRACE Of CONDOR
Mystery of the Missing Steamer
Is Still an Unsolved
Problem.
British and American Vessels
Cruising North Pacific Wat
ers in Search.
Believed That She Collided With
the Mattewan and Both
Foundered.

Victoria, B. c., Jan. 31.-There is still
no news of the missing Condor. a. M.
! S. Egeria and U. S. S. Grant are cruis-
ing on the west coast to seek for any
wreckage that has come ashore there,
| to endeavor to find clew to her posi-
BILE fate. and II. NJ. S. Phateon and U.
S. S. McCulloch are cruising the waters
of the north Pacific, between the lati-
lulu in the hope of finding the sloop-of-
war.
| That the Condor has met with an ac-
cident as result of the heavy storms.
seems certain, and the greatest hopes
held for her are that she may be found
| a helpless derelict, as was the Strath-
nevis in the north Pacific about six
years ago, and other steamers in Aus
tralian and south Pacific waters since
| then Ii the Condor is still afloat, it
would be difficult to find her. as was
shown in the case of the missing
Strathnevis, which drifted unseen and
unreported for seventy-five days before
| the Australian liner Miowera gave her
a line, but failed to bring her to port.
This was done afterward by the collier
Mineola, which thus earned consider
ale sum in salvage.
Some who hold hopes that the Con-
dor is adrift and helpless recall CONVEX
sations with lieutenants of the Condor
in which the officers of the missing war
ship told of her scant canvas. One lieu
tenant is quoted as saying the Condor
could not sail with the canvas she had.
If this is the case. or her canvas has
been ribboned, she will be helples, If
she is still above the water, as her small
complement of coal will have long since
run out.
Others who have formed pessimistic
opinions regarding the war ships safe
ty recall conversations with officers
who decried the build of the craft and.
spoke ominously of danger to which she
would be subjected by one of her guns
breaking from its lashings in a sea. or
of the disability of the vessel to free
herself, by reason of her we'll decks
whenever in a sea.
There are some few who even adj
vance the suggestion that the miss
ing collier Mattewan, which sailed
from Nanaimo on December 2 with
cargo of 1850 tons of coal for San
Francisco, collided with the Condor,
which sailed on the same day from
Esquimalt in that heavy storm of
December 3, and that both foundered
On board the Condor are about 140
men, and some of these are survivors
of the earliest fights of the war against
the Beers in South Africa. Sergeant
OF Marines Edgson. who was the
scholmaster on board the Condor, and
who has wife and family in Scot
land. was the only one of his section
who survived in the battle of Gras-
pan. in which the naval brigade took
such an active part. He was wound
ed in number of places, all more or
less seriously. but was drafted to the
Condor before she left Sheerness
when he was commissioned for SER
vice at Esquimalt in November, 1901. |
"Crime Against Nation"
The Colonist of this city says re- !
garding the Condor: when a lands
man is told what sort of a ship the
Condor is he feels like calling the
building of such craft ond sending
her to sea loaded with valuable lives T
Il crime against the nation. The low
freeboard and high bulwarks of the (
Condor are an invitation to disaster.
and surely 1t ought to be possible to
avoid the construction of such vessels
Ships of the Condor class are meant
for the high seas. II that is not their
purpose there is no excuse for them.
They should therefore be built so as
M or 10
minimum.
Experienced seamen say that If
heavy sea boarded the Condor she
would retain so much water within
her bulwarks that she could not rise
to the next sea that came. 1t is also
said that her sister ship went out to
sea and was never heard of again. It
has been stated that the Condors cap
tain declared that she was not a safe
ship. If these things are true, what
possible justification can be pleaded
for putting sailors aboard such YES
sci and sending them abroad?"