Disasters Still | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 5, 1871

Disasters Still.

WHATEVER may be the reason, disasters seem never to come singly of late, and there are philosophers who charge their occurrence to special cosmical conditions of the elements. Be this as it may, we have this week another list of railroad accidents, wrecks, and murders. The most noteworthy of these is that which occurred on the Eastern Railway, within ten miles of Boston. An express train dashed at full speed into the rear car of an accommodation train, killing twenty-four persons and wounding twice as many more. At present the blame seems to rest upon the engineer and conductor of the express train. The former was notified to run cautiously, as the track was not clear, and the latter failed to whistle “down brakes” as soon as he ought to have done. New York is trying to make an example of those who are responsible for the Westfield disaster, which shall be a warning to railroad and steamboat men; and Boston now has a chance to do a like good work in New England, as the conductor and engineer of the express both escaped uninjured. On the Erie railroad we have a similar accident, the number of killed and wounded being fortunately considerably smaller. A cyclone swept along the South Atlantic coast, doing much damage. The steamship Lodona is a total wreck on the Florida coast, the captain and twenty men having lost their lives; the steamer City of Houston only escaped a similar fate through the efforts of some United States naval officers who were on their way to Key West with a strong detachment of sailors. The captain of the Houston, be it known, became drunk at an early stage of the troubles. Four other wrecks of sailing vessels are thus far reported along the Florida coast, and the list will doubtless be increased before the week closes. Besides these, we have Indian raids at the West, destructive fires in various quarters, the yellow fever at Charleston, S. C., the Asiatic cholera at Liverpool, England, and lastly, just as we go to press, a steamboat explosion in Mobile Bay, whereby some seventy persons were killed.

THE steamer Ocean Wave, while on an excursion, with 200 passengers on board, exploded her boiler at Point Clear, near Mobile, on Sunday afternoon. From sixty to seventy persons were either killed or wounded. The cause of the disaster has not been ascertained. Out of seven persons comprising the one Creole family, six were killed. The captain, engineer, and pilot, were killed. Only three of the officers escaped.

THE recent storm on the South Atlantic coast was the severest that has occurred there since 1854. In Jacksonville, Florida, also, much damage was done, and the rice crop all along the Atlantic coast is much injured.