CAUSES OF THE LOSS. 271 



and sense of the responsibility thrown on him were shown by the fact of his not having 

 had his clothes off for five nights previous to the loss of his ship ; and the weather fine, 

 with the exception of the prevalence of a dense fog. 



" If we further inquire whether the owners of the ship had done their duty in providing 

 their passengers with all available means of safety, we find that she had an ample and com- 

 petent crew, had eight boats, six of them being life-boats, and that life-belts more than 

 sufficient for every one on board were provided, and were to a large extent used, since all, 

 or nearly all, the bodies that were picked up had life-belts on them. The latter may, 

 however, have been of inferior quality indeed, are said to have been so. With so many 

 elements of safety, what then caused them to be of no avail? 



" The immediate causes of the loss of the ship were apparently the dense fog and 

 an insufficient allowance for the set of the well-known current which sets out of the 

 Bay of Biscay to the northward, across the entrance of the British Channel, which has 

 sometimes considerable strength. 



fC A secondary cause was the old offence, so general in the merchant service, despite 

 all the warnings of experience neglect of sounding, the lead not having been used during 

 the day or night, nor on the two previous days. 



" Lastly, the chief cause of so few lives being saved, there can be little doubt, was 

 the same as that which led to such fearful results in the case of the Nortkfteet, viz., the 

 custom of making use of night signals of distress for other objects, such as to call for 

 pilots, to signify arrival, &c., a folly admonished in advance in the old fable of the boy 

 raising the alarm of ' Wolf, wolf ! ' when there was no wolf, and then receiving no succour 

 from his neighbours when the wolf came. 



" It appears to be customary for the German steamers to make the Scilly Islands 

 to enable their agents there to telegraph to Plymouth the approach of their steamers, in 

 order that the necessary preparations should be made for a prompt disembarkation of 

 their passengers for England on their arrival at that port. 



" The saving of time, which, looking to the great daily expense of such vessels, with 

 their hundreds of mouths to be fed, and their immense consumption of coal, is the saving 

 of money to the shareholders, and is, of course, the motive for communicating by signal 

 with Scilly, just as the maintenance of high speed in all weathers, and by night as by 

 day at all hazards, is so, and which leads to so many disasters. 



" All that we would suggest, in the interest of humanity, is that such communication 

 should be left discretionary with the captain of every ship in the case of fogs, when it 

 should be optional for him to proceed directly for Plymouth, or to heave to, or to feel his 

 way at greatly diminished speed by frequent sounding, which would be a certain guide to 

 him for a distance of many miles round the islands/' The writer suggests that, in view of 

 the too common neglect of sounding, such neglect, when discovered, should be punishable 

 by heavy penalties. It was proved in evidence that the Eagle line of steamers were ex- 

 pressly prohibited from firing guns, or exhibiting other distress signals, to make them- 

 selves known, but that other German steamers had done so, of which those on board this 

 unfortunate ship now reaped the evil consequences. 



On the morning of the Gth December, 1875, one of those sad disasters occurred which 



