On Fire at Sea.

Hastings Standard, Issue 361, 1 July 1897, Page 4

On Fire at Sea.

A NIGHT OF TERROR. The following account of a fire at sea, referred to in our cables last month, appears in the American Press of May 30th : —Thirteen charred and blackened corpses were carried from the steerage compartment of theLeona this morning and carted away to the morgue, while the ill-fated ship, with her bow burned clean out and the outer plates swollen and burst from the heat of the holocaust of early Sunday morning, lies tied up at her pier at the foot of Burling slip. Some there are who say the crew were panicstricken and did nought to save the unfortunates penned in the furnace below, but the preponderance of evidence is that, with the exception of the stokers. Captain Wilder and his crew did all that mortal men could do. When the stokers, 18 of them, and all Spaniards, made a rush, panic-stricken, to the deck, and seized the lifeboat, Chief Engineer Taylor dashed towards them, revolver in hand. " One, two, three," he called ; " I ■will shoot at five." Suddenly the Spaniards climbed down out of the lifeboat. Wallace caught the man nearest to him by the scruff of the neck and sent him sprawling headlong down the deck. " Get back into the fire room," he commanded, and the stokers slunk .back to their work, thoroughly cowed. The crew worked manfully at the pumps under the direction of the officers, and kepi steady streams pouring a deluge into the hold. As the night wore oil t'ae crew kept up their

battling, the f: •rs of tlio cabin passengers beg.v«i to grow, and they strained their vyes looking for a \: •: •. Just ! c-;.;ro breakfast a v.vlcome sound v: ■ ; i ' ho J.- n, lookout- repo;!>:U n. fid. It w.-s a-n nnswerii.g nig':..! fo the Leoua's burning lights and distress whistle. Soon the steamship City of Augusta, of the Savannah Hue, which ■was following the Leona south, loomed up in the grey dawn, tooting her whistles and burning cotton signals at her bow. She was soon within hailing distance, and hove-to within a few hundred feet of the burning Leona. The lifeboats were lowered from both steamships, and soon all the surviving passengers from the Leona were transferred to the City of Augusta, while the crew remained behind to continue their fire fighting. The whistling attracted a number of fishing boats, and several of these surrounded the burning vessel, and, .for want of something else to do, picked up the cargo thrown overboard from the Leona. Among the articles thrown into the sea were nearly half a hundred sewing machines. The fishing schooners managed to save some of these before they sank. For seven long hours Captain Wilder and his men fought the flames, and while the Leona's passengers were at breakfast on the City of Augusta, word came that the fire was out, and they might return to their vessel, which, it was said, would return for New York at once. They were transferred and took their state rooms again,. while those of the steerage passengers who survived were placed in the spare state rooms. Two acts of heroism mark the disaster. One was that which cost E. Cotrane his life while the other condemned Antoine Vlacikek, a 14-year-old Bohemian girl, to her horrible death. Cotrane had escaped, but, finding his sister and her child was left behind, plunged into the furnace again to rescue them. The three were found together. The Yalcikek girl could have got out, but hung back to help one of her little brothers. She pushed him up the companionway, but the effort was too much for her, and she fell back into the hold. Her father thought she was behind him, and when he found she was left behind tried to go back after her, but was restrained. President Mallory said that the damage to the steamship was about 50,000d01. No cause for the fire is known. The officers of the Leona say that it is almost a miracle that the ship was not burned to the water's edge. All that saved her is the fact that she is an iron vessel and the crew was to confine the blaze to the forward hold.