Year: 1873

i


Another appalling catastrophe has occurred
on the Atlantic Ocean. No event with which
we are acquainted-and, surely, no magma
tion-can equal in circumstances of tragic ter
ror the dreadfully simple story of the loss Of
the Vile du Havre. Cut to the waters edge
by single blow, and sent to the bottom in
forty minutes, with two hundred and twenty
seven persons-such is the cruelty plain and
barbarously downright chronicle of calamity
that has desolated hundreds of homes and
ruined, no doubt, world of hopes. In how
brief o space are all its incidents crowded!
! At one moment these hundreds of passengers
are sleeping TRANQUILITY in apparent security,
having full confidence in the stanch ship and
the careful captain. despite the heavy night


and the stormy wind, and in the next moment


there is a wild rushing to and fro, q frantic


struggle for safety, and the sea goes over all


the scream of fear and agony is lost in the


wind and the wave together. and in three
quarters of an hour from that time of appar-
ent safety The ship is gone down, and no
trace is left of her but the few creatures more
fortunate than their fellows who are left strug-
Cling on the surface clinging to floating things
in the desperate endeavor to keep up till the
boats shall come. Without warning all the
others have gone to their account; and not
merely without warning, but perhaps in many
cases with scarcely an intelligent conscious
ness of the fatal event. They were wakened,
many of them perhaps by the rushing into
their staterooms of that furious sea from
which there was no escape for them; or they
leaped from their berths into the water already
rapidly filling the rooms, and before they
clambered up again there was no longer any
space between the surface and the ceiling
One may scarcely dare imagine the heartrend-
ing cries, the fearful histories of those few
moments down below before the relentless sea
ended all; and the story is sufficiently dread
full without such vain attempts.


With the facts before us it is difficult to
thoroughly understand the disaster. There
are some points in the reports that seem to in
volve inevitable contradictions. We are told
there was fog, as accounting for the failure
of the ship to see the steamers lights and
yet that gale was blowing--in the presence
of which certainly the fog must have disap-
peared. Neither can we understand how, in
the thick weather and the high wind, the
boats that the ship sent out could live and
find their way; and yet the women who were
rescued and many of the men were taken up
by these boats. Half the acute perception
that was necessary for the Loch Earns boats
to find these perishing women tossing hither
and thither on the boisterous sea should have
suffced to make out the steamers lights and
keep the vessels clear of one another; and if
the ship could pick up her boats again by sig
mails addressed either to the eye or the ear,
how was it that the steamers signals were
hidden and her fog trumpet unheard? It is not
possible to suppose that the steamers lights
were not in order. First class ocean steamers
are sailed too carefully as to these obvious
precautions for such an hypothesis as the
absence of her lights to be admissible. Yet it
will need to be very sufficiently proved that
there was not negligence Of some sort. In the
case of the United States steamer Oneida, cut
down in broad daylight and inhumanly aban-
doned by the British ship Bombay, there was
certainly negligence So there was in the
case of the Northfeet, emigrant ship, sent to
the bottom with nearly all on board by the
Spanish steamer Murillo. In the case of the
Collins steamer Arctic, that in dense fog
collided with small vessel on the Newfound-
land banks and went down, it was thought at
the time that properly diligent lookout
might have prevented the accident. That
there was criminal negligence in the navi-
cation of the steamship Atlantic no one can
for moment doubt. And as these events, all
more or less resembling the present ca
lamity, were partly or wholly due to some
oversight, some momentary lapse Of that
earnest vigilance that is necessary to safety,
we fear we may yet be compelled to add to the
history of this disaster the painful reflection
that it might have been prevented 1t is pos
sible to conceive of such an accident happen
ing with every precaution taken-a catastrophe
defying human care and the preventive pro-
vision of human foresight; and when we con-
slider the number of ships on the sea and the
ceaseless trail of maritime traffic and the
comparative infrequency of these disasters, we
must assent that the provisions taken to in
sure safety are wonderfully adapted to their
end and we must admit that there is the less
cause for wonder if they do sometimes fail.
The Vile du Havre was an iron ship, and
one blow sent her to the bottom. 1t was the
same with the Atlantic; and in neither
case would q similar injury have been
equally fatal to wooden ships. Compare
with the huge bulk of these ocean
steamers their vast dimensions as to
size and tonnage-the thickness, or thinness,
rather, of the iron plates which are all that
stand between the passengers and watery
grave-and we shall see that the protection
afforded is necessarily of the most fimsy
character. An ordinary kitchen utensil, made