A disgraceful catastrophe is reported from Calcutta. On the 19th
August the Eagle Speed quitted Port Canning for Deme- rara, with 300 men, 93 women, 63 children, and 39 infants on board. She had passed the Roy Mutlah Sands, when the cable which connected her with the steam-tug broke, and the vessel, which had touched the sands in passing and sprung a leak, began to sink. The steamer made no effort to save her, the pilot left the wreck in a boat for the tug and refused to return, the European sailors got drunk, and no one assisted the wretched coolies except Captain Hoskins, the port-master, who happened to be on board. He made five trips, saving some 169 coolies, and would have made more, but was disabled by sunstroke. The steam tug then left the ship, which did not sink for eighteen hours, and all the rest of the coolies, more than 300, were slowly drowned, or swam ashore, to be eaten by the tigers. The European crew of the pilot's boat had to be heavily bribed to induce them to go back to save their own captain, and the pilot peremptorily refused. He can be punished, being liable to be cashiered for misbehaviour, but there is no punishment for the captain of the steam-tug or the sailors. They did not drown the babies,—they only let them drown.
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