THE PENGUIN DISASTER

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 23, 20 February 1909, Page 6

THE PENGUIN DISASTER

WERE THEY ALIVE? . SICNU-'ICAXT INDICATIONS. 1 Among tho«e wlto acted with com-ni«-miai,a- ia conneetion with tin- NTiiK. oi 1 lie Penguin "were *■ .Ui —ia t;. I'i.itiK.k and Almun tilt' U"III.n..111. Both --entlemen arc kn-n moiurisU, and when tin* new* il.t-i.. ;i 1-U..H.1 tliti oily, Mr i'innoek at once ?|iiang into action. lie communicated \\iu m.- i umii Company, and was informed tnai a ..lotor-car had already keen seni w. lf iiul this did not extinguish the h.>|v t : U c lie might be of service, so, enlisting the sympathy of Mr Alnioiid, they cocked the ear witli j stimulant*. iblankets, and towels, and went out through the rain to Makara, where, through the forethought of Mr Xathau, pack-horses from his station were waiting to carry necessaries ovc the mountainous track to the scene of the wreck. When half way over the hills, Mr Pinnock met a man with a loaded pack-horse coming back, and on being questioned he said he had heard that the survivors had left for town via the beach, and he was returning with the goods the Union Company had sent out. Mr Piuuoek persuaded him nut lo return, btit to go right on. There was a boat-load of women and children missing who might yet be found and who might want the good tilings they mid brought. 80 the maa—a Makara fanner—turned about agahi, and made for M'Menamen's, over hill and dale.

" It was a good job we diil go on," said Mr l'kinock, •' for when we arrived at M'Menamen's they had no bread, and there wasn't a bottle of spirits in the house, .and there was Mrs. llaanan and others there who wanted stimulating after their terrible experience. This was no fault of Mr M'Menamen's, rather the other way, as he had given the survivors everything in the house. '1 reached the beach at eleven o'clock, I at which time only a few of the bodies' had been pulled up out of the reach of i the tide by two or three shepherds fromj the station. As we went along we came, upon other«, scattered here and there j along the beach, and started to pull, them up high and dry. These had not | been touched by anyone since they had : been thrown up by the waves, and I'll j tell you what (said Mr Pinnock, with deep conviction)—some of those poorj people were alive when they reached the beach, as sure as I'm alive." I Why did you aay that V ' '•When- "Wei got there uo one bad been before us, and yet the smooth sand near, the feet and arms of .several of the, ' bodies was disturbed, as if in their i dying struggles they had vet enoughstrength to move their limbs, la some cases, too, 1 noticed a depression at the side of the head, as if they had been able to move it about. My belief is that several of the men reached the shore alive, perhaps not conscious, and died there from sheer exhaustion. Seeing what I saw. nothing will convince me that lam not right. Had it been possible to reader succour to some of them, lives might have been saved." Mr Pinnock speuks strongly in respect to the lack of any organised attempt to recover the bodies and treat tlicni with the respect due to the dead. He has 1 grounds for complaint, too, when it is considered that between 11 a.m. and noon his party came upon bodies that ■no one else had sera, much less touched. ; except some of the survivors, who may have seen something of them *on theid I way to town.

FEELING IX PfCTOX. i A SAD AND DEJECTKU TOWN*. ! A well-known Marlborough teacher I sends the following pathetic description of the feeling 011 the Picton side of the! Strait when the news of the wreck be-; came known:—Over here, on Friday night, we knew that the Penguin had i difficulty before her. Was not the Sound the shelter of many vessels that evening, telling us of terrible weather in tbe Strait?. Picton was a. sad town on Saturday, am! has been sadder every moment since, for we had hopes at one t7inc of (better news, We have many here who had very narrow escapes—names not mentioned in print. hi this house in which T am staying, a mother and two daughters are now boarding, who by the merest accident did not leave this shore in the Penguin. , "The first thing 1 looked for on Salur- 1 day morning from my window, which is only a chain or two from the wharf, wa* the Penguin, hoping that she had not sailed on Friday evening. -1 had scarcely seen the vacant berth at the wharf when the house telephone rang, and the sad news came—' Penguin wrecked.' I knew so many of those drowned ; my duty causes ine to travel between Picton and Blenheim. On Friday afternoon the carriage I was im was full .of those passengers, all bright and happy, who were to travel that night across the Strait f see their faces now. If the gale at sea was anything like as strong as one of the gusts that struck the train, J can well understand the helplessness of the Penguin's situation. Some in the carriage I knew intimately, some by sight, and others I knew were strangers likely to be going away. Xoel White, as fine a young man as one could wish to meet, chatted brightly with 111 c all the way along in the train, several times devoting iiis attention to my little boy, whom he played with and left with a merry 'good-bye/ By White's side sat Mnsto Matthews, who owes his life to that brave woman Mrs Hannain. Mr Bone, with his friends (Mr and Mrs Hale, 1 think), sat opposite to me in the train the day before. Mr Bone I had not seen, for years, and tiro last thing he did was to show me photographs of his sons, one of whom he was anxious to meet in Wellington, because the son would be passing through to llawera. Coming back again to Friday afternoon's train, ■nearly opposite to me sat Mr Holcroft and his friend, ami behind them sat Mrs Brittain. Mr Shaw and Mr Downes were among the fortunate one. It was a >a<l ride the next day 1 sat in ttn* s»me carriage. So sad a time has it been in Picton that 1 hope that I may never be in a port again at the time a vessel goes to her doom —especially in such a brief hiterval.

" Feelings here are strongly in favoni of a, daylight departure always to Wellington." and many think that it could be managed easily enough. Speaking for myself, I sllali never leave here at night.'whoa there is bad weather in the Strait. Poor Captain Naylor 1 If ever there was a captain I would trust it was he. and I would trust him again any time."