A STORY OF A GOLDEN RING.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 170, 18 July 1872, Page 4

A STORY OF A GOLDEN RING.

A story, which appears to be well authenticated, is going the round of the papers to the effect tbat on the 28th October, Captain Tye, the master of the smack Mary Ann, of Colchester, picked up at sea the dead body of a bullock, which was quite warm when found, and appeared to have been thrown overboard by a foreign steamer which passed the Spitway Buoy at noon on that day on her way to the mouth of the Thames. The seamen of the Mary Ann, having cut up the carcase in order to obtain fat for greasing the rigging, found in the stomach a golden ring, bearing an inscription and the date 1869. The officer appointed to deal with "wreck" under the Merchant Shipping Acts was communicated with by Captain Tye, and it was found that a ship called the Adler had reported that on the day in question an ox that had died of exhaustion through stress of weather was thrown overboard. At about the same time tbat this discovery was made, a letter was received by Captain Tye from a gentleman at Nordenhamn, stating that he read in the Shipping Gazette of the finding ot the ring, and that the lady whose name it bore was the wife of a wealthy farmer. Further information was sought, and it then appeared that at the marriage of this lady she and her husband exchanged rings in the German fashion, and that one day last winter, as the latter was engaged in making flour-balls wherewith to feed his oxen, he lost his wedding ring, and as he did not know which ball it was in, or which of his oxen had swallowed it, he gave it up as a bad job. Subsequently he sold seven of his oxen to a dealer, who shipped them to England on the 26th of October as part of the Alder's cargo. On the voyage one of them died — probably the pressure of the ring in its stomach aggravated the sea-sickness from which it suffered — and was picked up as above stated, the result being that the ring has been restored to its rightful owner.