Perils of the Sea

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 26, 1877

Perils of the Sea.

The peril and sacrifice which attend the commerce of the world, and which constitute the price of mercantile prosperity, are very clearly illustrated by some statistics of shipping disasters which the New York Bulletin has collected. The preservation of the records in 1876 was not secured with quite as much accuracy as in preceding years; but the most reliable data show the loss of 2300 vessels during the year, and 180 sea-going steamers. This aggregate is larger than that of either of the three preceding years, but was exceeded in 1872—a year of multiplied calamities—when the number of vessels lost was 2547. During the last eight years the total number of sailing vessels and steamers lost was nearly 20,000—in exact figures 19,966. These returns do not include losses in the fishing fleets, except whalers; though the vessels lost from the Gloucester fleet alone during the last ten years number 159. During six months of one year the value of the vessels wrecked on the British coast alone was $10,000,000; and during the first month of the present year the vessels belonging to or trading with this country, which were lost, were valued at $1,320,000.

Nor is the sacrifice of human life in this connection any light consideration. The average number of lives lost—without reckoning the frequent casualties to passenger vessels—is about 500 annually; and in 1875 it reached 928, the increase being due to the wreck of the German steamer Schiller, when 331 persons went down. The Gloucester fishing fleet during the last ten years has lost 1049 men, or an average of about 100 annually.—Boston Journal.