TRAGICAL OCCURRENCE AT TOWNSVILLE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 251, 1 April 1875, Page 3

TRAGICAL OCCURRENCE AT TOWNSVILLE.

The Cleveland Bay Express, 30th January, reports that of the 199 Chinese who landed at Townsville from the mail steamer Brisbane on Tuesday morning last, about 150 took passage for Cooktown by the A.S.N. Company's boat Victoria on Thursday afternoon. The shipping of these Celestials, as it turned out, was a task beyond the powers of the A.S.N. Company. They were duly booked, and paid their fares for deck passages to Cooktown, but when they reached the Company's wharf, they found that the only means of transport provided was the small steamer Swift, with two of the Victoria's boats, leaking at every plank, in tow. The Chinamen jibbed at the means of transport provided, and hesitated between the dread of losing their passages and losing their lives. The former fear, prevailed, and they swarmed into the boats until, even had they been water-tight and seaworthy, they were scandalously overcrowded But this was not all; the tow lines connecting the second and third boats were so ridiculously short that there was not room for them to ride independently, even with the small swell that prevailed ; and the consequence was that when just attaching to the Victoria the middle boat was capsized, and the whole of the passengers and swags sent floating over the waves. As a matter of course, every effort was made to save those who were thus suddenly immersed. In this effort Mr A. Ross, Captain of the Swift, especially distinguished himself. But it is yet a matter of doubt how many were actually drowned. So far as we have been able to ascertain only two young men, aged respectively 22 and 23 years, of those booked as passengers, lost their lives; but even the Celestials, like Europeans, have friends of their own blood and nationality, and the suspicion is that several of these, who were giving their friends a convoy, have been drowned.