LOSS OF SEVEN HUNDRDD LIVES.

Waipawa Mail, Volume I, Issue 17, 9 November 1878, Page 3

LOSS OF SEVEN HUNDRDD LIVES.

The home correspondent of tlie Auckland Star gives the following particulars of the Princess Alice disaster : » \;ist \v *-k the Thames near Woolwich was the scene of a tragedy such as has no parallel in the annals of this country “ Down went the Royal George With twice four hundred men.” Thos • who know anything of Loudon within the past f* \r years • will well rein -mb r tin* handsome 11 jet of saloon-pas-senger steamers belonging to the London Steamboat Company, ami which were con-Hinn-ted with a view to absorb the minor associations for the river passenger traffic. Of these there was no finer or more favi*rit Princess Alii e, 220 feet long and 2d feel I> -am, and engines of 140 horse-power, and calculated to ca.ry 9:>U pas* *ng *rs without undue crowding. I have fr. ijn fitly chosen this boat for a run down t »** river, and no easier or more pi -asant m -diiim of travelling could have been iinagin d. L ist Tuesday she made the run down to Siieorness with a full coiupleiii**nt of passengers, and left Gravesend at six in the evenin on her return journey, quite full of returning holiday people, of whom a very large portion consist -il of women and children. Woolwich Arsenal was sight -d about 8 o’clock, and t.'ie Princess Alice was just rounding Tripcock’s Point—an awkward spot, which your nautical readers will all remember well—with the tide strong ebb, and had put her helm hard a starboard for the purpose of passing through Callous reach on the south shore, in slacker water, when a large Newcastle screw collier, in ballast, steering down the stream, came u|*ou the unfortunate saloon steamer 1 ke a ponderous razor, and struck her full in the starboard sponson. cutting her dov n to th.- w it r’s edge like an egg-shell. You can more easily imagine than any pen can describe that moment. The terror and agony of those eight hundred passengers, the fierce struggle for life, th ■ shrieks and cries of the drowning, and shouts of the crew of the collier, the water literally black with heads and garments for a few moments—only a few moments. The steamers hung together for a few seconds, just long enough for a few of the rather more energetic to clamber up by the anchor chains, and a few rope ends that were hove over the collier's bows ; then they parted, and in less than three minutes not a trace of the ill-fated Princess Alice was to be seen. She had broken into three pieces, sunk in midstream, and 600 souls had gone to their last account. The Bywell Castle, the destroying agent, is a 1300 ton iron vessel ; built like all the coastiug colliers, with sharp towering bows, and it is easy to realise the impotence of the saloon steamer or, indeed any vessel, to withstand the shock. The ■creams and whistling of the Bvwell Castle ■team-veil soon alarmed those ■shore, and all available boats at once put off io the darkness, to the rescue ; whilst another steamer of the same line (the Duke of Teck), also in her upward passage, sue*'ceded in picking up several passengers. The descriptions given by the survivor* of the scene on board at the time of the foundering of the vessel are harrowing. Whole families have perished in this terrible disaster. Fathers have been saved to iiud themselves widowed and childless ; mothers, to find tiiemselve* the sole survivors of a family f»rty- Little children scarcely able to isp their names have been picked up and restored, only to find themselves alone in tile wide world. The stories are perfectly neartrvndiug, and the daily papers have jcoutamed each day, ever since, pitiable accounts of parting struggle*, last dying requuats, and mail conflicts for a rope’s end, or a piece of broken timber. The following morning the country was stirred

the frightful disaster. The Queen at Balmoral telegraphed her sympathy, and sent her aide-de-camp down by the first train to make special enquiries on her behalf. The Steamboat Companies, Railway Companies, and the Admiralty, have afforded every facility for friends in the identification and removal of bodies. One of the Government sheds was converted into a huge mirgue, and the scenes there and at the inquest rivalled in sadness ami horror the accident itself. It is as yet not possible to give with certainiy the number of the drowned and killed, and those who have since died (not a few) from the shock and irnrn *rsion, for bodies are continually coming to the surface. The wreck was raised and beached a couple of days after the accident, and many corpses were found in the saloon. Many bodies have not been claimed, and have been buried unknown ; whilst multitudes of inquirers have been unable to discover their missing friends. A fund for the relief of the poorer survivors is being raised, to which the Company has given £IOOO, the Queen 100 guineas. It is quite impossible to say where the blame rests as yet. Both sides claim to have been in the right. The poor fellow who commanded the Princess, Captain Grimstead, was in personal charge at the time of the collision, and was drowned ; so that the most reliable and important evidence on behalf of tlie passenger boat will not be forthcoming.