Maritime Disaster SINKING OF THE STEAMER GAMBIER.

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 26, 29 August 1891, Page 2

Maritime Disaster SINKING OF THE STEAMER GAMBIER.

TWENTY LIVES LOST. (PER UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.) Mklboubne, August 28. The steamer Gambler, which left Sydney, on Tuesday last for this port, came into collission, about 1 o'clock this morning, with the steamer collier Easby in Hudson's Bay, as the latter was leaving for Newoastie. The Gambler sank in a few minutes, and about 20 liyes were lost. The Dasby had her bows stoye in and put back to port. Immediately after the collision heartrending scenes were enacted. Passengers who were in the cabin at the time rushed on deok in their night dresses. The women -were huddled together on the deck, while, the men rushed hither and thither seeking safety, either in attempts to launch the boats or clambering aboard the Easby. There was, however, little or no time to launch the boats. Ths Easby, after standing by the scene of the accident, steamed, back to Melbourne, where she arrived early this morning. The following is the list of those drowned : — Saloon: .Vlr and Mrs Treyenach, Mrs Sharpe, Miss Wooling, and :vlr Johnston. Steerage: Messrs McCarthy and child, Franklin, Turker, Kelly and child, Gainor and daughter. Miller, and Quin ; Mesdames Leslie and child, and Davidson and child. Crew : Shaw, Mcdonald, and Brown. This Day. One of the life boats belonging to the ill-fated steamer Gambler has been picked up three miles away from the scene of the disaster. It contained three corpses, that of an old man, a young man, and also a girl. Captain Pndeau, of the Easby, says I never dreamed that the Gambler would attempt to cross me as she did, for she waa on tlie Q-ueexiseliflre side, an <i X Ha.<l no -occasion to go on the Q-aaenßolifEe I course. [ Captain Bell of the Gambier was drawn under by the vessel, but being an expert swimmer, rose to the surface and swam to the boat. He states the second engineer was being swept out to sea on a box when he was saved, as was also a women who was taken from a spar. The captain declares he steered the correct course. Tbe boats from the Gambier, crowded with passengers, capsized time after time, and on each occasion the human load was lessened. Some of the scenes were very pathetic, .especially that of passenger Thorpe, who dragged a lady back into the boat on its righting itsqlf, and thought he v/as saying his wife, to* whom he had only been married five months, but qn a closer inspection he found his wife missing, and the lady saved was a Salvation Army lass. .