(Timaru Herald.)

Waikato Times, Volume XVI, Issue 1385, 19 May 1881, Page 3

(Timaru Herald.)

There was a greater loss of life, perhaps, when the City of Dunedin was lost sixteen years ago. But of the circumstances of that case, nothing whatever is known. The steamer left Wellington on a calm summer evening, and vanished with every soul on board, how or where no man can say. Here, the general facts connected with the wreck are but too well known, and they are painful in the extreme. The captain of the Tararua is beyond the reach of human blame, and it ia not for us to pass judgment upon him ; but there seems to be no doubt that the w reck with all its terrible consequences, was caused by an inexplicable error of seamanship on his part. As if impelled by a malignant destiny, he persisted in steering his vessel right on to a rockbound coast, when there was not the least necessity for him to run any risk whatever. Once on the rocks, the fate of all on board must have been fiom the first exceedingly precarious, and the wonder is, not that so many were lost, but that any survived to tell the tale.