FEARFUL SHIPWRECK: OVER ONE HUNDRED LIVES LOST.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1814, 21 February 1884, Page 3

FEARFUL SHIPWRECK: OVER ONE HUNDRED LIVES LOST.

«. Despatches of Jan. lSiepoitthe total loss of the steamship City of Columbus, belonging to the line tunning between Savannah and Boston, and the loss ot more than 100 lives. The scene of the disaster was on a reef called Devil's Bridge, off Gay Head, near New Bedford. The steamer left liu-ton at :i o'clock on the afternoon of Jan. 17, for Savannah, and stiuck at 5.43 next morning. The cause seems to have been want of attention by the pilot, as lie told a passenger who was in the ligging with him after the vessel stiuck, that ha had fixed the course ot the ye &el and fastened the wheel, and as he w as \ eiy cold went to thr; smoke stack to waim himself. He temained theie twenty minutes, and ■when he returned to liis post lie found the ship luid veered lound. When lie ascertained that the vessel was among the rocks, and it was probably impossible to save her, he put benight in shoie, and ran her as high as he co ild, with the n suit that although she drew 17ft cf water?, her ioicpait was in 1 lft. Among those who peiished was Oscar Isiog, Turkish Consul-Geueial, and a journalist named Moiton, of the Boston Globe, going South for his health. One-third of the passengcts weie women and childicn, not one of whom, so far as is known, is saved. One survivcr says: ''It was fearfi'l to see the women swept oii Some rushed on deck with their husbands, and as the full foice of the stoun bioke upon their, realising that all was lost, they threw their arms around their busbauds' necks and bade them good bye. A few moments aftei they weie swept overboard. A mother with her child held tight in Ik r aims was bume away by the waves almost beioie i caching the deck. Not one woman leached the ng gin?, and a majoiity v.cie washed oveiboard by the waves. A number weie probably smotheied in the botths. ' The steward, who was in the ligging with about forty ethers, pays they clung to the shrouds with then hug is benumbed. k with flojiting co> pscs ant) tlt!»i\ at their pfeet. Occasionally one of his companions would liom exhaustion, luo&e his hold and drop into the i aging s-m, but most of those who weie foi lunate enough to gain the ringing weie u-bcucd. Captaia S. F. Wiightwas saved. Out, of a passenger list ot 80 and a ciew ot i"> only 29 u era sa\ cd The tow n of Bedford, Massachusetts was full of people on Jan. 20, looking for the bodies of telations and friend*, l>ut tliere was. biich a deplorable lack of system in dealing with the corpses lescued fiom the sea that they weie scattered to all points aloi q the co i&t.

- Prot?ESiOK Hi \u \V. son is atti.icting consider ible attention in England -is a poet, and some of Ins fiiendo pi edict that hewil 1 some day l)e a poet lam eate. Til A Emperor of Russia oidcml foi the winter a cloak, the desoiiption of which sounds, like one of Oiud.i's iin.iginings. It was to l>e of saMi* tin 1 , timmied willi gold and eniiched with precious stones, the whole to co-t £SGOO. - Tun cathedral at Glasgow is shoitly tobe eniiched by a monument, which the officers and men of the Highland Light Infantry— the old 7-tth regimentare about to erect. The memoiialis to commemorate the D<ut the coips took in the recent Egyptian war. Thk Litest number of the Russian Nihilist organ, The Will of the People, gives harrowing details of the condition of the political pusoneis at the I'etei and Paul foi tress, vhcie they ,ue heated like murderers, no distinction being made between men and women, or siok or healthy. Several pusont-rs Iml gone nad, and committed suicide. (!)ipoieal )unishment of prisoneis is hequent A of Kosciusko is said to be in >ne of the depaitments in Washington ; E great granddanghtei ot JefFeison is in Hhe Juteiior Depaitmenr, and a needy Eeacendant of a relatixe of Geoige Washington has lately lcceived aGovernnent appointment. An intelligent Chinaman, who had •eturued to Portland, Oiegon, on Jan. l(i. Rom a visit to China, gives a, lifferent version of the storming ot iontay to that published by the Fiench. Ie acknowledges that 3000 Chinese were tilled, but decl.ues that the invading Trench force wes almost totally anihilated. Che Chinese, he sa d, had mined the rround, and lured the French over the nines with the most disastrous results. Je is confident the Fiench will not have ihe " walk over" at llacuinh they ■xpeefc. bu>* Spots. — The other day, Mr R. A. I ?rocter delivered alectme at the Manibester Town Hall on )Sun Spots, being »ne of the Royal Institution series of ectures. He began by showing that the bppareut surface of the sun is, according iO all the evidence which has been obtained, not the real surface. It is pro>able that the real working sun which Governs the eaith and the other planets,, 8 thousands of miles below the bright inrface which we see. The region of the (an spots, according to that which he re'arde'd as the most correct theory, is leep down below the apparent sin face, _[nd at the real surface. From time to ime a process of action, of eruption, akea place in the sifn, great masses of rapour are thrown up and pass higher nd higher, and not only reach the rjliible surface but often pass far beyond. Ls they pass higher and the resistance liminishes they expand and become ,loijd-Jike. Naturally, also, they be!ome cooler, and form regions of relative larltnesa or coolness, and it is thus thrt ye see them. By means of the oxyB^trogen light Mr Proctor showed of sun spots, and he pointed tremendous forces which must be in the sun to produce these vast ■ttiptions, which have been going on for Rftfre'«than twenty • millions of years. Hv^ry one °^ *" ne Btars U 1 tue northern Eemisphere, be coucluded by saying, is K»un in which similar disturbances, and Kppbablyf on" tli^ 1 average even greater, Kpw-; goioir on, while also^the three thounpd »t£ra i" Lue'suufhem lieriiisphere are ■M^ten^^of^k'e disturbances, governiffiMi^BMnndthem, and/iropwtf •. -;