THE FIRE AT SEA.
A CONSOLLTION for terrible calamities lies in the striking acts of generosity and sympathy which they occasion. The staff i of humanity s tested by these trials. Few functionaries seem less removed from commonplace, less free from the baser and more sordid motives, than that class of female waiters in shiPs/ who are styled "stewardesses "; yet the frightful calamity which befel the Ocean Monarch suddenly displays one of that class courting death by an act of devotion on a par with the most heroic that have been recorded : she was suffocated in endeavour- ing to remove the gunpowder from the midst of the flames. Several of the seamen devoted themselves to the work of saving the helpless, with the coolest disregard of their own safety. After the disaster, the crew of the Brazilian ship accept a reward which they had fairly earned, only that they may hand it over to the sufferers. The young Princess de Joinville and Duchesse d'Aumale, forgetting the immunities of royalty, labour with their own hands to aid the afflicted ; and the Prince de Joinville gives up to their use a sum of money which his party had destined to a pleasure excursion: a practical recognition of common humanity, which would convey to the unhappy people more solace than the mere cash, and may perhaps remind the Republicans of France that the fallen dynasty had its virtues. Contrasted with these headlong impulses of generous sympathy, is the prudential care which made the commander of a great steamer, calculating his coals, the set of the wind, and the distance, decide not to bear down upon the burning ship, as his own would be endangered. No doubt ; but in cases of extremity, it behoves those who can to make the at- tempt at giving succour ; and if they do but share the danger, they redeem suffering from despair, and exalt the infirmity of -hu- man nature by making it the occasion for showing the strength of human nature.
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