The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1841-03-05 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

ACCIDENTS AT SEA.-APATHY OF THE GOVERNMENT.  The commissioners appointed, in 1838, to inquire into the causes of steam-vessel accidents during the ten preceding years, enumerate about a hundred such occurrences, and 634 lives lost during that period. Nearly half these accidents ''appened within the last three years of the period; 22, with oss of 137 lives, in the space of 15 months only, from January, 18"  to April, 1830. Since that time the number has increased • and three vessels, the Tyrian, the City of Boulogne, and the Governor Fenner, have perished by collisions alone since the spring of 18-10. In every one of these cases the fatal result might have been prevented if government had thought proper to introduce such legislative remedies as were recommended by the commissioners and the two committees which precede::: them. The chief causes of the-c) :.,isasters have been the foundering, &c., of vessels at sea from unseaworthiness ; the bursting lers from the want of strength, or the use of improper and collisions, from the want of an of road," and a uniform system of imers, fit only for river navigation, re often built for sale, puffed off in advertisements as splendid vessels, bought by individuals or companies ignorant of what a steamer ought to be, and afterwards seat to sea. This was the case with the unfortunate Rothsay Castle, in which 119 souls perished. It was equally so with the Aurora, which would probably•have been wrecked on her first voyage had it not been for the judgment and determination of an individual passenger. Boilers and machinery are constantly worked after they are completely unfit for use. The Forfarshire, and the Abbey, two vessels wrecked, the one in September, 1838, the other in March, 1839, were both sent to sea with boilers leaking, and patched up in the most disgraceful manner. Those of Abbey were plugged with horse-dung, old ropes, and hemp ! In the Forfarshire, whose owners knew in what condition she was when she put to sea, 45 lives were lost. Numerous and`dreadful explosions have been caused by the practice, which; down to 1839, was gene safety-valves,  ascertained  ral in Scotch-built steamers, of using exposed and accessible safety-valves, which worthless engineers frequently overload or tie down for the purpose of gaining an extraordinary degree of velocity at starting. Accidents have also been caused by the absence of steam-pressure guages and glass water guages, and by the inadequacy of safety-valves in point of size. The employment of unfit persons as engineers has been a fruitful source of mischief. A third class of disasters—as in the case of the Governor Fenner—arises from collision,:and to remedy this the commissioners recommended a way of reducing every different usage to an uniform system by positive enactment. The Governor Fenner and the Nottingham steamer. meeting on the high seas at night (the ship being without any external lights,) attempted to pass each other—there is no uniformly recognised and authoritative rule—the two vessels acted on two different rules, and in fact steered into, instead of away from, each other. The Governor Fenner, with her 122 souls on board, went down. Whether she was or was not seaworthy (emigrant ships are too often the contrary, even under the compulsory survey system), is not at present the question—she perished by a collision which could never have happened had any uniform rule to govern ships and steamers in passing been established by law. _  The conversation which took place in the House of Commons on Thursday last is not calculated to diminish the indignation with which all humane persons must view the apathy of government upon this subject. Mr. Labouchere said, that he considered it more expedient to wait, till the different outports chose to adopt the rule laid down by the Trinityhouse, which be says may " probably" be " before long," than to settle the question immediately by law. A general custom, he thinks, will soon establish itself ; and when it does, that custom will be noticed in the Admiralty Courts as much as it it were law. But what, we ask, is to happen in the mean time ? Are we to have more Governor Fenners run down, merely to gratify Mr. Labouchere's preference for a custom over a law ? more emigrants expatriated by political economy on shore, and slaughtered by carelessness at sea? Human nature revolts against the policy of " leaning to the side of doing nothing," in .such a case as this : and the British public, who know that a legislative interference on this subject has been recommended by repeated committees and commissions, will require some better justification for non-interference than the assertion that such a resolution was adopted " upon consulting the Trinity Board, before the late melancholy accident." The 122 lives sacrid since that consultation are 122 reasons for interfering, 't for the Trinity Board or fifty  which it would be  ire so- many in the world, town „DESPERATE ATTEMPT AT SUICIDE, BY AN OFFICER OF THE 60th