News by the San Francisco Mail

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1691, 20 July 1875, Page 2

News by the San Francisco Mail

ANCHOVIES AND TOAST.

(From our London Correspondent.)

June 2. THE LOSS OP THE SCHILLER. — MATURED ACCOUNT OF THE DISASTER.

The past has been a busy month for newspaper men, what with wrecks, strikes, accidents of all kinds, and crime, we have all, been as busy as bees. The loss of the Schiller on the Retarier Reef, off the Scilly Islands has been the leading event, and in consequencee of your mails having been on board of .her, the affair presents to you unusual interest. A great proportion, at least half, of the mails have been lost, but I have been amongst the fortunates who received several Auckland letters and papers. Blurred they were and not very legible, but still readable, and having a double interest in consequence of the broken condition in which the news came to hand. The wreck took place on Friday night, May the seventh, about ten o'clock. As you are doubtles3 aware, these large ocean liners usually make such a good landfall that they have no fear of any mishap in anything like tolerable weather, and no doubt the master of the Schiller, who was an Englishman naturalised ■in Germany, felt so sure of his position that, notwithstanding the fog, he did not think it necessary to take a cast of the lead. Indeed, the circumstances of the loss of his vessel point to the fact of the feeling of certainty haviug pervaded the captain's mind : for to strike the reefs where the wreck took place the vessel's head must have been brought round to the northward of her previous course, which proves that her commander imagined himself past these dangers ; so he would have been had he kept his former course for a quarter of an hour longer. As soon as she grounded, she fired a gun, but unhappily many vessels do this merely as a signal of having passed the telegraph station, so that no notice was taken of it, further than that the signalman telegraphed to Lloyd's that_ the Schiller had passed. Passed she certainly had—but to utter destruction. AFTER THE VESSEL STRUCK. No sooner was the doomed vessel jammed hard and fast than the heavy western swell which waa running began to make a clear breach over her. You may imagine perhaps*, though no words could adequately describe the scene on those decks, where 355 people were doing their utmost to escape from an almost certain fate. The passengers behaved as a rule heroically. They were nearly all of a good class and the sterling metal proved true as usual. A great proportion of the crew broke into the spirit room and made themselves insensible. Only two boata managed to get clear of the wreck, and these contained the second and fourth officers and twenty-five passengers and crew, including one lady. The boats reached Tresco. in the Scilly Islands the next morning. The chief officer and six men were picked up floating On bits of wreck during the night by a fishing boat from St. Agnes, and nine more were rescued after daybreak from various floating timbers and spars. Three hundred and twelve people perished, many of them miserably and after hours of exposure. The women were nearly all carried down bodily in the iron saloon in which they had taken refuge. Imagine the horror of the brave fishermen of Scilly when daylight revealed what had taken place, for if they could only have known what was i*oing on only some half mile from their firesides, they could have easily saved the bulk of the lives ; but that fatal practice of gun signalling proved the death of hundreds of uufortunates in this instance. £00,000 in dollars went down with the vessel and all the mails. About half of the latter floated and were picked up by boats, and it is likely that during fine weather the divers will be able to recover the money. Nearly all the passengers were ■ Germans, and the distress in Hamburgh baa been most intense. This fearful wreck rivals the Oospafcrick affair in magnitude and to us appears even more dreadful, as occurring in such close proximity to our shores. BEHAVIOUR OF THE CORNISH PEOPLE. The Cornish people for years possessed an unenviable notoriety as wreckers, but their humane conduct during the last three weeks has not only quite cleared them of any suspicions of such a kind but has gained them a fair fame for all posterity. Large numbers of bodies were picked up by them at sea and among the rocks, and in no instance was any article of jewellery or money missing, although most of the passengers had a good deal of both about their persons. THE BODY OF A BEAUTIFUL AMERICAN LADY. Amongst those who perished was Miss Dymock, an American doctoress of great note, who was coming to Europe on a holiday. She was a very handsome young weman, and when found looked exactly as if asleep. Her body was embalmed, in order to be sent back to her friends in America, and several English ladies visited. Scilly and the remains in order to do honour to her memory. •All-the rescued ones agree that Captain Thomas died nobly, making every effort to save life, and even using his revolver to prevent the men crowding the boats. OUR CORRESPONDENT INTERVIEWS A SURVIVOR. One dreadful incident has been described ■to me by a survivor. He was passing the door of the saloon on his way aft, when he was accosted by one of the passengers, a stout blustering sort of creature, who always, seemed to be very wealthy and wore many rings, etc. "O ! for God's sake save me," he said, "I'll give you fifty thousand pounds if you'll save me." My informant replied by asking him where his wife and children were ? " Oh, never mind them ; save me; I'll give you anything you like to name." However, I believe such, an instance to have been unique, and in the case* of the women I believe they exhibited an extraordinary amount of stoical firmness. The fog which had prevailed during the early part of the night and prevented the Schiller sighting the Bishop's Light, lifted about an hour after she struck, but all the powder, rockets, and blue lights were then wet, and there was no means of attracting attention. A thrill of horror ran through England on Saturday evening when the papers appeared with the news of what had occurred. The ontcoms of it all ig that probably a steam fog-horn will be placed at all places oo the coast where it is possible such a tragedy could be repeated.