TELEGRAM.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 277, 3 April 1869, Page 2

TELEGRAM.

by the mass of wateravliich fell on her. This / young lady was seated in the saloon, reading, h when the wave overwhelmed the ship. The v water struck her on the back of the neck, C and broke the spinal column. She was a very beautiful girl, scarcely eighteen years p of age. The captain, finding that he could o not continue the voyage in • safety with the -v fore-deck open and exposed to a fresh dis- I aster, at once decided on putting back, and j reached Havre, as already stated. — Daily \ News, Jan. 29. i c

Wellington. — April 3, 7 a.m., H.M.S. Ulanclie, from Akaroa. Terrible Accident to 'a Mail Steamer. — Last Tuesday morning considerable excitcisaeut prevailed at Havre. At daybreak the look-out men signalled the approach of a large Atlantic steamer. Shortly afterwards It became known that the ship was the French transatlantic steamer, the Pereire, Captain Duchesne, which left Havre on Friday, the ■15th January, for New York, with 83 passengers. Soon afterwards the Pereire slowly entered in a disabled state— all but a wreck. •On the 20th, when in 40deg. west longitude, ■Jt violent tempest sprang up ; on the following day the storm had increased to a hurricane, when, about two in the afternoon, an Immense wave of about 700 tons of water i£ell like an avalanche on the deck, crushing ia the roof ot the second cabin, sweeping ,«ray the bulwarks and two boats suspended from their davits, and breaking down the I»ridge, which fell on the deck with the officers' watch-house. The immense mass j>f water then penetrated into the interioi .»£ the vessel and inundated the cabins and mgine-rooin, extinguishing 24 of the 3C £o.rnaces. In a moment Captain Duchesne *rbo had gone below to put on some drj slothing, was on deck, and had the vesse: 3»ut about, which manoeuvre at once afforded relief to the steamer. But a most fearfu; spectacle presented itself, several killed ant •wounded, passengers and crew, lying in th( -midst of the wreck ; four were found dead .and 21 more or less seriously injured. Or 'calling over the names, a seaman and a waitei ■were found to be missing, having been swepi overboard. . The other deceased were Jouan .* seaman, killed by the fall of the mainyard and three passengers— Mr O'Callaghan, i Lazarus priest, crushed to death; M. Foul juier died from congestion of the brain sad Mdlle. Finckelberg, a young Germai lady, aged eighteen, whose back was brokei