APPENDIX. 167 



keeping up that courage which has sustained them so often in adver- 

 sity, and firmly believing that the tide which has set so strongly 

 against them will soon turn, and bear them on to a greater degree of 

 prosperity than ever before experienced. 



THE TERRIBLE GALE OF SUNDAY, AUGUST 24, 1873. 

 ITS FEARFUL CONSEQUENCES! 



Like a clap of thunder from a cloudless sky came the rumor into 

 town, on Tuesday, August 26th, that there had been a terrible gale 

 to the eastward, extending all along the Canadian shores, carrying 

 destruction in its pathway by sea and land, sweeping, with sad 

 havoc, among the fishing-ileet in the Bay of St. Lawrence and 

 around Prince Edward's Island. Gloucester had one hundred and 

 thirty-eight of her vessels in those waters, and the anxiety to hear 

 from them was most intense. It was also feared, and it has proved 

 too true, that the gale had extended to Georges Banks, where 

 there was quite a fleet. The news came slowly, and the reports at 

 first were somewhat contradictory. But sufficient was received, dur- 

 ing the next day and evening, to convince our people that it had 

 proved one of the most terribly disastrous storms that ever occurred 

 in those waters ; and those having friends there began, as best they 

 could, to prepare their minds for intelligence of another large loss of 

 life. It was painful to witness the anxiety which pervaded this com- 

 munity, and to notice the attendance at the Gloucester Fishing 

 Insurance Company's Reading Room, as the bulletins were displayed 

 from time to time. The newspapers were full of the disasters which 

 the storm had occasioned, the reading of which was most appalling. 

 Houses were blown down, trees torn up from their roots, and the 

 tidal wave which accompanied the storm, carried the wrecked vessels 

 far above high-water mark, and left them stranded on the shore. 

 Wharves were destroyed, and desolation and ruin followed in the track 

 of the storm. Day by da}^ the sad news came, and there is mourn- 

 ing throughout the town as we pen this article. "Wives are weeping 

 for their husbands, who will never again bless them with their earthly 

 presence ; sisters are mourning for bi'others, and little children ask, 

 in plaintive voices, "Why does not father come home?" It is, 

 indeed, terrible, this news from the fishing-fleet ; and the loss of life, 

 before which all other losses sink into utter insignificance, is greater 

 than by any other one gale since the fishing business commenced. 



