SERIOUS STABBING CASE AT ONEHUNGA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 4461, 1 March 1876, Page 2

SERIOUS STABBING CASE AT ONEHUNGA.

A very serious case of using the knife occurred at Onehunga ou Monday evening. It appears that the firemen on board the Ladybird, now lying at the wharf, having had their wages reduced from £12 to £10 per month, struck work and left the vessel. -Fresh hands had been engaged, and amongst them a Coraican, named Antonio Marco. This man, in company with another, was going down towards the vessel about 8 o'clock, when they were met by two of the old hands. Some words occurred) .commenced, it is said, by the old hands, who ! spoke derisively of the "£lO hands." Some scuffling ensued, which resulted in Marco drawing his sheath knife and plunging it into the uhest of one of his opponents. Marco flung the knife away and bolted, but he was surrounded till Constable Greene arrived. The man Marco appears to have good certificates from other ehips. The wounded man, James Williamson, was only temporarily employed ou the Ladybird. The stab whs nearly fatal, entering the left breast aud passing close to the htart. The wound was dresie i by Dr. Zitizan, but the result of course, will be unctrtaiu for some days.

THE MISSING SHIP STBATHMOKB."" Considerable anxiety has '', for some' time been experienced,,■'• regarding the safety of the ship Strathmore,; which left London, for Otago,-; |in>; May, ' 1575;- but,, .until this of. The ship was ultimatelyiigiven up' as lost; speculation being rife that, having a large quantity of gunpowder on board, she had, by .the incautious use of naked lights in the hold, been blown-up at sea, and her passengers and crew perished. Not long since it was notified that the insurances on the vessel and cargo had been paid, all hopes being abandoned; and, amongst the items paid, was a sum of ten thousand pounds by the New Zealand Insurance Company. Tlie misgivings for the ship's safety have proved, unfortunately, too true ; but we now learn that twenty persons on board the ill-fated ship have miraculously escaped from the jaws of death, to be rescued, after months of sufferings aud privations on the barren island of Crozet, situated iu tho Southern Ocean, between the parallels of 46 and 47 degs. south latitude. The news, by telegram, of the rescue and safety of this little band, although very scant, bears with it a fearful tale. It appears that the ship Josh Bently touched at Point do Galle on the 2-ltli February, and landed twenty survivors of the Strathmore, bound from London to New Zealand. The latter had been wrecked on the Crozet Island, in July, 1575. Tho rescued people are desciibed as having been in a wretched condition when taken°off the island, on the 22nd January last, after a forced sojourn of six mouths in this inhospitable region. Their escape was due to the American -whaler Phoenix sailing near the island, and probably perceiving their signals of distress. She embarked the shipwrecked people, aud falling in with the Josh. Bently, transferred a portion of them to her. We thus learn that Mr. Crombie was landed at Galle, while Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth, Mr. Walker, and Mr. Keith remained in the whaler. Amongst those who perished in the loss of the Stratlimore are mentioned the unfortunate captain and mate. The cablegram does not enlighten us as to how the vessel was lost, but it is probable that she was driven ashore on one of the islands and thus wrecked. The Crozets are a volcanic group of islands to the south of the Indian Ocean, and lie betwean Kerguelen's laud on the east, and Prince Edward's Islands on the west, about midway between Patagonia and New Zealand. Situate almost withm the circle of the Antarctic regions, there is a possibility that the Ipsn of the Strathmore may be owing to a collision with an iceberg, one of the perils that attend navigation in these ice-encumbered seas, and such of the passengers and crew as were saved may have escaped in a boat and lauded on one of the Crozets. These islands are uninhabited, and are described as bearing a certain resemblance to the lands in the more immediate neighbourhood of the Polar Circle in their general dreariness of aspect,' and the scantiness of their vegetation. This will prove that the survivors must have endured fearful privations during their many months' stay on these rocky islets, and as their wretched condition, when rescued, would shew. In all probability their only subsistence would have been fish. We published last month a statement from the Dundee Advertiser to the effect that the hull of a large vessel abandoned had been passed in lat--23 deg. south, long. 40 west, on the 30th August. The vessel appeared to have been recently burnt, and, by her description, was believed to be the Strathmore. The Cardiff Times also stated that a private letter had been received from a passenger on board the Strathmore, dated from 4 dog. north of Equator, saying that the crew had broached the cargo, and had mutinied. Part of the men weie.then in irons, aud the rest were quiet. Amongst the passengers were the grown-up son and daughter of Mr. Henderson, C.E., who is the principal engineer, acting for Messrs. John Brogden and Sons, in constructing the railways in New Zealand."