LATER PARTICULARS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 180, 31 July 1900, Page 3

LATER PARTICULARS.

NEW YORK, July 1

The losses sustained in the fire at the docks of the North Gorman Lloyd Steamship Company in Hoboken yesterday are to-night conservatively placed at nearly ten million dollars; the loss of life—merely guess work at even this late hour—will reach probably as high as 200, and there are over 30Q men in the hospitals in this city, Hoboken and Jersey City badly 'turned;. The only way .steamship officials lvave of approximating the loss of life is by comparing the list of those reported safe with the list of the employes on the steamships. Late to-night Gustave Schwab, the general agent of the North German Lloyd line, gave out n list showing what men on each vessel had been missing up to that hour. On the Saale 255 men were employed and only 127 of these had been accounted for up to 11 o'clock, leaving 128 men actually employed as officers, sailors, stewards, engineers, coal passers, oilers and trimmers to be accounted for.

The Bremen had 204 men on board, but only 127 of these have been found. The Main had 137 employes on board at the time, and of these'only seventysix have been repoi*ted safe.

A SPECTACULAR BUT HORRIBLE

SIGHT.

was presented to-day. Where two days ago piers reached hundreds of feet out into the river and rose like great hills alive with outgoing and incoming commerce, lay a great waste of burning and smouldering beams, with here and there a remnant of a high brick wall. The three immense piers of the North German Lloyd' line were burned to the water's ripple, the Thingvalla pier lay smouldering, rfnd a part of the Hamburg-American pier, which had just been added to their great piers, were in ruins. Four large storehouses of the Palmer Campbell Company were wrecked, and they, with the piers, went to make up the appalling mass of debris, smoking, sizzling and steaming. It covers over four city blocks and reaches out into river for over a thousand feet.

The loss of life will probably prove greatest when the wreck of the Saale has been searched. Already a number of bodies have been taken off, and as soon as the fire in the hold has subsided there, is evei*y probability that many bodies will be found below decks. Various tugboat captains claim to have seen thirty or forty persons in one compartment Just t>efore the Saale went down.

NEW YORK, July 2—The Morgue authorities to-day identified one body as that of Captain Mirow, of the Saale. On the "body were found the captain's knife, watch and chain and portion of his note book. Captain Mirow entered the service of the North German Lloyd many years ago, and .rose by promotion to rank of captain seven or eight years ago. His. record as an officer had been' a. very successful one and remarkably devoid of mishaps. RECOVERING THE BODIES. Sixty-seven bodies, of victims of the Hoboken fire have been recovered. Each hour that passes witnesses\hdditional recoveries of bodies scarred, maimed and burned beyond all,recognition or semblance of humanity. And half has not yet been told, as all the bodies brought to the surface to-day were caught on grappling hooks. About the first of next week people will realise the appalling loss of life, as dt will then be time for the bodies that are now Hying at the bottom of the river to come to the surface of the water of their own accord. The list of missing is still placed at but a few below three hundred. When the bodies begin floating to the surface the gruesomeness of the situation will be realised.

Those who will undoubtedly swell the list are 240 odd men from the steamships, including officers, subr officers, seamen,' oilers, machinists, coal passers and trimmers, the greater loss, of course, being among- the men who were below decks and could not g-et to open air before the flames choked them and heavy falling debris beat them down to their death.