22 OCTOBER 1898, Page 3

The week has been full of tragedies. At 7 p.m.

on Friday, the 14th inst., the ‘Mohegan,' a splendid steamer of 7,000 tons, belonging to the Atlantic Transport Company, was approach- ing the Lizard en route from London for New York, when she was, for some reason which will never be fully explained, steered right on to the ridge of rocks called the Manacles, from which she ought to have been ten miles distant. Cap- tain Griffiths, a most experienced and trusted officer, behaved admirably, as did his subordinates and the crew, but nothing could save the ship. There was difficulty in getting the two lifeboats down to the water, one of them capsized, and in leas than twenty minutes the huge vessel, with her bottom plates smashed in, her engines powerless, her electric lights all out, gave a great lurch and foundered. Of fifty-two saloon passengers only eleven were saved, and of the crew of one hundred and three only about forty. All the officers except the surgeon were drowned, and several of those rescued by boats from the shore died at once of injury and exposure. One lady, however, a Miss Noble, who was three hours and a half clinging to a plank, shook herself as she was seated in a rescuing boat, and declared herself wet but well. We offer elsewhere a hypothesis in explanation of the catastrophe.