COLLISION IN SAN FRANCISCO BAY FIFTEEN VICTIMS OF THE DISASTER. RUN DOWN IN THE FOG BY THE OCEANIC.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 300, 19 September 1888, Page 5

COLLISION IN SAN FRANCISCO BAY FIFTEEN VICTIMS OF THE DISAS TER. RUN DOWN IN THE FOG BY THE OCEANIC.

Tin: steamer City of Chester, a coaster belonging to the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, was run down by the steamship Oceanic, a big Chinese liner, belonging to the O and O Company, on the morning of Wednesday, August 23rd. The collision occurred at 9 a.m., in a dense fog, off Aleatraz Island in San Frincisco harbour. The Oceanic was coming in from China and Japan, and tho Chester had ju&t quitted her pier, bound up the coast to Eureka. The iron prow of t*ie larger steamer cut into the port side of the smaller one nearly to midships like a knife into cheese, and she sank in about fifty fathoms of water, four minutes after contact. The damage to the Oceanic was not material. Ten of the Chester's passengers were lost— either crushed or drowned. The thick, white, low-lying fog, so prevalent at this season, hung across the bay, hiding the Golden Gate, while the tops of the hills on both sides were bathed in sunshine. The City of Chester had passed Black Point safely, and steamed, without accident, to a point in the channel between Fort and Lime Pointy. Her captain states that the whistle was being blown regularly and the usual precautions were taken to prevent a collision. The fog, which is as shifty as it is dense at this season of the year, suddenly lilted, so that the vision was unobscured for a distance of a hundred yards. The passengers on the City of Chester were engaged as passengers usually are on a coasting vessel before she has cleared from the harbour. Some were in their etate-rooms arranging their effects ; some were on deck reading or smoking. All were as oblivious of their fate as if the fog that hung above them was the roof of their friendly homes, and nob the shroud of death. The first intimation of the

catastrophe which was to convert the City of Che&tcr into a gigantic coHin was I the hoarse and warning sound of the fog whisUl) of an ocean steamship. The next instant a huge black mass rushed out of the mjst ahead, and almost before the leri itieel / passengers and tho horror-strickon oilicei'ti of the coasting vessol could realise ihe daiiirer that was upon them s escape was impossible. The indistinct mass had come like a phantom out of the veil ot fog, and assumed, as it sped on, the familiar but none the less teirible shape of a huge steamship. The cries of terror and the shouts of warning that aioso from tho deck of the doomed coaster were stilled in the inevitable crash, as the powerful ocean steamer plunged her sharp bow into the side of the City of Chester, cutting tho thick planks and shivering the stout timbcis as- if they had been so much paper and matchwood. The City of Chester had been struck on tho port side, near the main hatch, and sho ab once commenced to Jill. The noise of the deluge of water jt& it poured tlnough the greal rent in the sido of the vessel added to tho tciror of the panic-stricken passenger-. l?oi tunatel_> the Oceanic did not at once clenr tho stiicken vcsc-oi, and wl'ile the two ,-lcameis were locked together many of the tcnihed pas&engeis clambered up the chains and bow sprit of the ocean steamship and cacaped. The frceno that followed i& inde-ciibtib'.e. Those of the City of Chester's ciow and pissengcrs who have survived namUe indistinctly what occiured. In the intense excitement of the struggle for life theie was no time to note Mmoundingv, and all that hat been gathered are tho individual impressions of each .sur\i\or. Feat* of heroism weie happily, how e< er, not altogether wanting. Though the Chinese crew ot the Oceanic looked on with apathy or behaved with the lack of s-piiifc so characteristic of coolie sailors thciewere some white men whom the peril of the situation did not daunt. By the c\eitions of lhe?e few bune ones the loss of life was lendeied much 'ccS than it would otheiwise have bcun. Ten minutes after being struck the City of Chester sank, and with her all those who had not been able to escape to the Oceanic or m\ mi away before the wateis closed o\ ci hei.