For the first time within living memory an Atlantic liner
of the first class, and belonging to one of the greatest and most popular of the great steamship lines, has gone down, with nearly everybody on board. At half-past five on Wednesday morning, when forty-five miles of Lowestoft, the North German Lloyd Liner 'Elbe' was run into by a small steamer, the Crathie,' and twenty minutes after sank, with the loss of three hundred and seventy-four lives. Only twenty persons escaped. We do not wish to speak harshly before all the facts are known, but it is not pleasant to record that of these twenty only five were passengers, and of the five only one a woman. The loss would have been much greater had the 'Elbe ' been sunk after, and not before, she had called at Southampton. She was on her way to that port from Bremen when the collision occurred. The night, though pitch-dark, was clear ; but for some unexplained cause, the on-coming steamer did not alter her course, though it is alleged that the Elbe ' fired several rockets to attract her attention. The place where the ship was struck was just abaft the engines. A very heavy sea and a bitter easterly wind "blowing nearly a gale," made the task of escaping from the ship very difficult. The boats could not be launched, partly because of the confusion and partly because the ropes were hard frozen. The narratives of the survivors are peculiarly painful to read, as they are not redeemed by those accounts of nobility of conduct and self-sacrifice, happily so often to be found in cases of shipwreck. One of the passengers describes the crowd of excited men trying to tear away the life-belt which he had put round him. The captain, however, seems to have done his best, and went down on the bridge. When will some one invent a method of lowering boats which will really act ? At present a steamer's boats are merely heavy ornaments,—or devices for soothing the nerves of the passengers.
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