DROWNING DISASTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 242, 11 October 1902, Page 5 (Supplement)

DROWNING DISASTERS.

HOLIDAY HORRORS.

(From Our Special Correspondent..

LONDON, August 29,

The opening of the holiday season is always marked by a large number o: fatalities to holiday-makers. Some of these, such as the Instantaneous deaths of the brothers Fearon and their two guides on the summit of the Wetterhorn by a flash of lightning, are "the act of God." Most of the drowning oases, however—and these form by far the largest proportion of tne holiday casualties—are the result of carelessness, inability to swim, and inexperience in boats. The saddest feature of so many of them is that theo- might have been so easily avoided. By far the most pathetic tragedy yet recorded is the drowning of Aye children on the sands near Filey last week. The Yorkshire coast is a very treacherous one, the tide coming in with great rapidity on to the treacherous sands. On the Reighton Beach are a number of "lyes," high banks of sand left by the outgoine tide, around which the incoming tide rushes, transforming them into small islands. There are no notice boards to call the attention of inland visitors to the dangers of the coast, and if there were, so careless are people on the sands, it is extremely doubtful whether anyone wou.d pay attention to them.

Last Friday afternoon Mrs Taylor, of Leeds, and her sister-in-law, Mrs Webster, of Reighton, to whose farm she was on a visit went down to an unfrequented part of the beach with their five children -Lily, Clarissa, and Elsie Taylor. 12, 9, and 7 respectively; and Martha and Hannah Webster, 11 and 3. The tide was at half flood, and the little girls took off their shoes and stockings and paddled across the s.iallow, narrow channel to the sand bank, where they played for some time, digging and building castles, careless of tho incoming tide.

The mothers, busy chatting and knitting, never dreamt for a moment of their children's danger, until 15 minutes after the children left them they were alarmed by cries for help. The tide rushing swiftly in had converted the narrow ditch into a deep, broad channel with a strong current, which the children had sought in vain to ford. As the tide .urged all round the sand bank and rose higher and higher round the little girls, whose cries for succour became heartrending, the distracted mothers rushed into the water and endeavoured to wade through to tbe rescue. Neither, however, could swim, but they only desisted when, up td their necks in the channel, they were carried off their feet by the surging waves. Then, while Mrs Webster rushed up .the sands for help, a Miss Harper, in spite of her lameness, pulled off her skirt and plunged into the flood, while the children ran to meet her. But the sands shifted under her feet, and a wave drove her back exhausted. The two elder children, plucky to the last, veld the little ones up in their arms. Meanwhile, Mrs Webster had fallen in with a Mr Cass, a Scarborough violinist, who was cycling on the sands. He rushed up to the spot and made a heroic attempt to save the children, who were now up to their waists in water 150 yards from the shore. Although unable to swim, he struggled on after falling into a deep channel. He was within 20 yards of tho huddled group, when the tide swept him off his feet, and it was with great difficulty he saved himself, being quite exhausted when he got to land again. Then a big wave engulfed the little girls before the eyes of their mothers, and in a moment the only trace left of them v. as their Tam-o'-Shanters floating on the tide Courage, how little it had availed! Had only one of the would-be rescuers been a moderate swimmer, the bereaved mothers would not have seen "all their pretty chickens" swept away "at one fell swoop."

Last Tuesday two boat accidents of the very simplest character resulted in the loss of seven lives. In the Thames two of Doulton's employees hired a skiff just above Lambeth Bridge, and at a dock a little way up stream picked up two comrades. One of the latter stepped to the back of the boat, leaned over to put the rudder straight, tumbled into the water, and capsized the boat. A number of people were looking on, and made fruitless attempts to -detach the life buoys from the wall of the embankment, but again there was no swimmer available, and only one man, who clung to the bottom of tne boat, was saved. On the same day five nuners went out for a row in the reservoir of the Merthyr District Council. There Was no wind, and the water wa_ Calm, but in the middle of the reservoir the boat upset, and again only one man was saved—the one who clutched the keel of the boat. As for the ordinary bathing fatalities, they are of daily occurrence. Poor swimmers get a little distance out, become frightened, struggle frantically against tbe outgoing tide, and soon succumb. Although we are a nation of sailors, only a small proportion of the population learns to swim. In London we have the Thames at our very door, but no floating baths for the people. If on a sultry summer's day half a dozen youths do strip for a dip, they are forthwith run in for indecent behaviour. The Londoner ought to have better facilities for swimming and boating than most people, but our advantages are sadly neglected.