A Terrible Tale of Sufferings.

Hastings Standard, Issue 199, 17 December 1896, Page 4

A Terrible Tale of Sufferings.

Few tales of the sea have ever been narrated which can surpass in terrible experience that told by Thomas Thomas, second mate of the Cardiff steamship Marling, an iron vessel which stranded 011 a. sunken rock off (Ireen Island. Nova Scotia, on January (>th, this year. Thomas has just arrived home at Cardiff, with the loss of both legs and all his fingers, as the result of frostbite. Himself and Captain Alfred Mei-k and the chief and third engineers, and 1:5 members of the crew, wore four days in an open boat, without food, and scantily clad, the thermometer registering 0 deg below zero. Before the boa 1 reached land no fewer than nine of the unfortunate men, including the captain, had been frozen to death. I'p'm being conveyed to the hospital at Halifax, Thomas had to submit to ampliation of the legs and all his lingers, and similar operations had to be performed upon the other survivors. Thomas says that by noon of the second day after leaving the ship two of the firemen died of cold. The boat at this time had a. foot of ice all round her. On the following morning another Jireman and the captain were found dead in the bottom of the boat. During the night one of the engineers and one of the firemen went nearly mad, and rail from one side of the boat to the other, almost capsizing it. Their screams wore horrible. On the third morning the chief engineer, third engineer, and a fireman were: found dead. They were simply blocks of ice. Mr Thomas was detained in the hospital at Halifax six months. A small boat which was launched from the Karling, and was manned by the chief ofiicer and six of the crew, has not been heard of. —Lloyd's Shipping Gazette.