DREADFUL ACCIDENT IN STYRIA.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 348, 24 July 1875, Page 3

DREADFUL ACCIDENT IN STYRIA.

The Vienna correspondent of the Times, writing on May 23rd, says : A dreadful accident has occurred at Judenburg in the valley of the Mur, in Styria. The month of May is the month of pilgrimages. All over the country processions are got up to one or another of the shrines which may be seen in every direction. This year, moreover, a centenary jubiiee of the Catholic Church was held at Whitsuntide. Among the processions got up was one headed by the clergy of St Stephen, in Syria, to the church of Strassengel, on the other side of the River Mur. From 400 to 500 people, the majority women, had joined it. Instead of choosing for the passage of the river the bridge of Gratwein, the ferry at Judenburg was chosen, in spite of the high waters consequent upon the melting of the snow. The first two trips across were successfully accomplished. The third time people rushed to the ferry boat, in spite of the warnings and entreaties of the boatmen. It became thus so overcrowded that it began to sink as soon as it was started, and the passengers—over a hundred—were in a moment up to their knees in water. The boatmen lost all control, and the current forcing the laden boat with it, the rope broke. The boat capsized, and was carried soon to a lower bridge, where it stuck, so that a number of persons could be saved. Up to this time some fiftynine dead bodies had been recovered, but there are in all seventy-six persons missing. A large grave has been dug at St Stephen's, where all those drowned have been interred .