SAD LOSS OF LIFE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 3599, 13 April 1886, Page 2

SAD LOSS OF LIFE.

(By Telegraph.) THE FIRST NEWS. Wellington, April 12,10.52 a.m. The Union Company's Taiaroa, bound from Wellington to Lyttelton, went ashore near Clarence River yesterday. The vessel is on her beam ends. Two passengers are washed ashore. It is believed that lives have been lost. The Taiaroa left here at noon yesterday, and in the evening a terrifio southerly gale came up. So far as known the following passengers booked from Wellington : —Mrs Fitzgerald, Mr Ward (torpedo instructor), Constable McQuarten, Sergt. Grant, Messrs Anderson, Galbraith, and Vallance. The following is a list of the officers : —Captain Thomson; Chief Officer Mr Mankman; purser, Mr B. Spooner: second officer, Mr Powell. Mrs Fitzgerald, who was on the Taiaroa, was the wife of the Editor of the TI&fABU Hebald. Another passenger from Wellington is Mr Hawkins, bookmaker. Among the additional passengers by the Taiaroa was James Fergusson, lately on a station at Taranaki, who was going to Timaru to visit his brother. Smith and Harbord, two magsmen, who had been attending the recent race meeting were also passengers; Grant and McQuarten were members of the torpedo corps. Blenheim, April 12. News has jnst arrived of the total wreck of the Taiaroa off North Head, Clarence river, list night. All hands are reported perished, except two passengers washed ashore. The steamer is on her beam ends. There are no further particulars at present. The agent here of the Union Steam Shipping Company goes overland to the wreck. Wellington, April 12,11.47 a.m. The secretary to the Telegraph Department has received telegrams from Kekeranga that tjio s.b. Taiaroa went ashore at Trolove's, Gravelly Beach, and is freo from the rocks. One of the Kekeranga hands returning from Clarence reports that he met a man on the beach early this morning, on the north, bank of the Clarence river, who said he was a passenger by the Taiaroa, which was ashore at a point about a mile north of the Clarence river. He went down at onco to' the wreck, and on the way they met a passenger. They could see no one on board, and the passengers saved knew of no others. The hands have been sent north and south to search for the bodies.