DESTRUCTION OF A STEAMER.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 101, 30 April 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

DESTRUCTION OF A STEAMER.

ON FIRE IN MiD OCEAN.

On March 10th, . full information, reached Liverpool of the loss of the steamer Legislator,' which " was destroyed by lire at sea, and by which four of her crew lost their lives. It seems that the Legislator, which left Liverpool on the 3rd February for Colon and otiier ports, was about 700 miles from Fayai, the Azores, when, on the morning of the 13th, an explosion was heard. This would be about four o'clock, and the, majority of those oh board were, asleep. The explosion, however, awakened . the men, and on going on deck they saw that the centre part of the ship was in flames. Dense volumes of smoke arose, and the men were unable to get any of their things. Captain Terinant, who wa.s in command, got his men to work with, hose and pumps, but it could be seen from the, first that no human effort could save, the vessel. The crew were divided, part being at..the..bo\v of ..ttye. ship.and .part at the stern, and they could not get to each btlier along the, shipro'wijig to the flames and the suffocating fumes. The chief cook, Frederick. E. Lee, somehow got his clothes ignited, and enveloped in flames was rushing about the deck. Several of the crew tried to reach him with a view of putting out the flames, but before anything could be done for the-poor fellow, in fact, before the crew could reach him, he ran up the ladder, and, in his agony, plunged into the sea. In the darkness nothing could be seen of him, but a boat was put out and lifebuoys thrown, but Lee could not be found, The lifeboat was then lowered fronf the bow of the ship, and eleven men got into her. A rope was passed■ fro.m -the- stern- of-the vessel towards the bow over the ship's side, and in the water so that it could '.not be burnt by the flames. With this rope the boat was pulled towards the stern, but before it reached the' place intended it capsized. Of the eleven men in the boat nine were rescued and brought on board the Legislator agahv but two .were drowned. The third officer-(WiHam Martin) and the steward *(J. Gaffney) were now the only occupants of the bow of the vessel and they lowered a boat, presumably with the- interitipnyof reaching the stern portion of the Legislator! The boat, however, was carried from the vessel, and the men were never afterwards seen by their comrades, they were picked up, however, by the steamer Grenfield, and landed at Vera Cruz. A fireman named Henry Uobex'ts was suffocated in the stokehole, and it was on the third day after the firehad broken out that his body was recovered. The Legislator had two passengers, viz., Dr. Mortimer, of London, and his wife. The crew nobly backed up the captain's efforts to save his ship, and Dr. and Mrs Mortimer were most assiduous in their attention to the injured of the crew, who numbered about half-a-dozen. Distresssignals were shown by the steamer by burning torchlights at night. After fighting the fire three days the survivors were rescued by the steamer Flowergate. The injured men, together with Dr. and Mrs Mortimer, were the first to be-taken from the ship, and finding that no 'efforts of -theirs could possibly save her, Captain Tennant and ..his1, crew abandoned the Legislator; They,had had a terrible, though heroic battle with' the fire and suffocating sulph,urous .flames. When last seen dense volumesof smoke were rising : up from the burning ship ,and it was thought that

the heat, which was becoming- terribly intense when the crew left her, would soon result in the total destruction of. the'vessel. The Flowergate landed the suryivdrs at Boston on the 27th February, where four of the injured men were taken to the hospital. All of the injured were expectd to be out of the hospital in a fortnight.