The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1911-10-14
SEA TOLLS

today minute by minute from dock to
dock, has beguiled all sense of fear
and laid the haunting mystery of the
sea?
Careful French statisticians com.
pileo each year for the Bureau We
ritas" a record of the accidents and
losses suffered for a twelvemonth by
the merchant marine of all nations
from which data are obtainable. The
yearly summary put forth by the
Bureau Veritas" is counted authori-
tative by all maritime NEWCOMERS,
agents, underwriters. Few who loll IN
the palm-gardens or loiter on the
roadways of the swift cities of ease
that cross the Atlantic know the
Bureau Veritas," its record of the
tolls gathered by that complascent sea
down-far down-below the rails.
Nine hundred and eighty-six vessels
of the worlds merchant marine
steam and sail-totally lost in the
year 1908, say these careful French
statisticians; and this tally recognizes
only steam-vessels of over one hun
dred tons burden. Such the record
of complete destruction, and the FOL-
lowing the count of damage not ir-
reparable: 4,273 steamers injured by
fire, collision, stranding, stress Of
weather, and other causes. The de-
struction varies from year to year; in
1907 there were 1,104 total losses
among merchant ships; in 1905 1,03S
steamships and sailing-vessels We're
gripped by the sea.
No count is kept of the men who go
down in the ships that are lost. The
statisticians deal only with CONNER
cial values. No bureau in the world
finds profit or incentive in keeping
count of the thousands of sea-wOrkers
who are claimed as toll by the sea We
reckon tanned. Only this is taken in
count: that every day in the year
somewhere on the restless wastes of
the seven seas two-in some years
three-ships are snatched in greed by
the power that tolerates the many.
So the average has it.
The sea takes most of it's 1.-THE by
stealth. A bandage of fog about the
navigator's eyes, a racing current
moving unseen beneath the masked
innocence of fiat water, a knife-edge
reef, or sand that yields until a keel
is fairly trapped-then destruction.
Not quite four hundred of the 9S6
vessels lost in the year 1908 were
. wrecked through stranding; 1853 OF
these were steamships, superior as
they were over the banks and schoon,
T ers subject to the whims of the wind
, Collisions sent ninety crafts to the
d, bottom. Fire destroyed thirty-eight
, Ninety-three filled and foundered
= Under the head of missing" which
means that not even careful French
} statisticians can divine the secrets Of
J the deep, fifty ships were registered
= in the 1908 record of disaster
= Missing-the word in the marintime
} code that sums up the unknowable
t admits the inscrutable genius of the
l careless ocean. Tragedy is inherent
p mystery is. embodied in the term
q Swift disaster under remote stars
e lingering suffering beneath a pitiless
sun, heroic sacrifice, black cowardic9,
prayers unavailing, cursings in mad
ness, hopes that dwindle to dumb de
spair, the hearts of men shriveled by
terror unplumbed-tales all told in the
sinister ear of ocean alone and un.
heard by the world.
A., Ships crash into ships; one of them
at least usually survives the shock to
bring to the nearest port tidings of the
accident if not survivors from the
craft that disappeared. Ships drive
upon some savage coast; their wreck
age tells the tale if every mouth is
stilled. But what of craft that sail
out on ocean tracks, out and out to
the wide port of lost ships? They are
reported, perchance, by this ship and
that; then months pass; cables buzz
in inquiry from port to port; ships
captains scan the waters where hope
insists that they must be- Hope snaps
finally.
Missing. Lost No man will know
where or how the sea shared these
ships, nor what was the death thai
was visited upon their crews.
The big freighter Naronic was ono
, of these boats whose fate the inso
e lence of the Atlantic keeps secret
? The Naronic on the day of her launch
, ing was the largest and strongest shiI
{ of her class in all the merchaar