On the afternoon of Friday week the cross-Channel steamer `Sussex,'
which ran between Folkestone and Dieppe, was tor- pedoed off Dieppe while crowded with passengers. The French captain of the vessel distinctly saw the approaching torpedo, and swerved sharply to try to run alongside it. His skill did not enable him to escape, but it certainly reduced the shock, as the torpedo struck the 'Sussex' far forward instead of nearly amid- ships, as it would otherwise have done. The fore-part of the ship was separated from the rest as though (to use the words of Mr. Edward Marshall, the well-known American correspondent, who was on board, and who wrote an exceedingly vivid account for a group of newspapers) it had been "cut off with a mighty knife." Some passengers and members of the crew went down in this part of the ship and were not seen again. The main part of the vessel, protected by her bulkheads, stayed afloat, though at the time it was believed that she was sinking.
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