ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4769, 9 October 1893, Page 1

ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES.

i Shipwreck and Loss of Life.

[Special to Pbess Association.! SYDNEY, Oct. 8. The Airlie, from China, brings news of the total wreck during a typhoon of the Sydaey-owned barque Florence Trent. The captain and his wife and four children and fourteen of the crew were drowned. Only three of those on board survived. The vessel was bound from Singapore to Shanghai with a cargo of timber.

A Fall of 3000 Feet.

The Eev C. T. Porter, English chaplain at Zermatt, has Bent to the Times come particulars, gathered from an eye-witness, of the distressing accident that took place on the Matterhorn the' other day. I believe, he saya, thiß expedition to climb the "Lion of Zermatt" originated with Herr Andreas Seiler, a young man of eighteen years, who invited a friend, Mr Nacar Gysi, of Manchester, to accompany him, and engaged three guides — Johann Biner, aged twenty- three ; Joseph Taugwalder and Leo Moser. The ascent was made from the Italian side, the moat difficult and dangerouß. The mountaineers started together, but after a while young Seiler determined to push on in advance of the rest of the party, with Biner for his companion. All went well till towards three o'clock in the aftarnoon, by which time the travellers had nearly reached the new "Cabine de la Tour," erected by the Italian Alpine Club at a height of 12,760 ft up the mountain's Bide. Suddenly the guidea Taugwalder and Moser were startled with what they thought to be the sound of falling stones. To avoid this danger they pressed themselves, with Mr Gysi, close to the rock. Their horror can be better imagined than expressed when they saw the bodies" of Seiler and Biner shoot past them, and within two or three yards of the spot where they were clinging to the mountain. The catastrophe might easily have involved the whole party/ How it happened no one will ever know, aa the two victims had climbed out of sight of their companions. Who first slipped we cannot tell. » Biner and Seiler were roped together. The rope held throughout that terrible fall of something like 8000 ft. The accident recalh that of July 14, 1865, when young Douglas Hadow, aged nineteen, Mr Hudson, Lord P. Douglas and Michael Croz fell 4000 ft on the other side of the same mountain. Thirteen lives have now been lost on the Matterhorn. Mr Gysi, with the two remaining guides, hastened, of course, to descend with their dreadful tidings. The descent under such' circumstances was at once trying - and dangerouß, but they succeeded in getting intelligence o! the disaster to Zermatt on Tuesday morning, when sixteen guides at once proceeded to search for the bodies. These they found fearfully mangled, the body of young Seiler resting on that of Johann Biner. In the Eoman Catholic churchyard, where lie the bodies of Hudson, Hadow and Michael Croz, poor Biner's shattered frame was also laid to rest, in the presence of a crowd of sympathising visitors, as well 0,3 guides and villagers. He leaves a mother and three sister 3to bewail his early death.

Mr J. M'Natnara, of the City. Hotel, met with a severe accident on Thursday afternoon. While driving with a friend along the road past the Waltham Hotel, a young man on a bicycle came up suddenly behind the trap and calling out to Mr M'Namara caused the horse to shy. Mr M'Namara was thrown on to the pavement, and sustained a . severe shaking and a slight injury to one knee, which will entail euf orced reßt for a week or two.