WRECK OF THE ELINGAMITE.

Manawatu Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 7628, 21 January 1903, Page 2

WRECK OF THE ELINGAMITE.

The finding of the Court of Enquiry in regard to the wreck of the Elingamite is sweeping and scathing to a degree. It is practically a verdict of guilty against everyresporjsible officer aboard the ill-fated steamer. The coptaia was a " grossly negligent " navigator, and the disciplino aboard was such Ghat, when the inevitable occurred, order went overboard ar,d chaos reigned supreme No particular moral can be deduced from the Soding of the Court, save that as to err is human, no regulations can ba devised calculated to make the careless man oareful and the witless man wise upon emergency. No 'punishment could possibly be devised for the man primarily responsible for the disaster more severe Ghan the knowledge that his conduct rau&t be held in abhorrence by his fellow men wherever the facts of the case become known. This thought tempers the not unnatural desire to prescribe a trial of manslaughter for Ernest Bacot Attwood. The Elingamite disaster is probably the most pitiful tale of the sea in local annals. No mon direful story of frenzied suffering cou'd be conjured up in tho imagination, and behind it all is the continual mmd-haunting picture of the boat-load of living people who pa sed out into the darkness, bebiud the veil, without signal and without farewell, k> be seen by human eyes n ) more uatil " the sea gives up its dead."