Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1880 — A SUPREME HORROR. [ARTICLE]

A SUPREME HORROR.

Los* of the Ship ffonanluiu, and the Frightful Fate that Befell Her Crew. [St. John (N. F.) Telegram to Chicago Tribune.] By the arrival of the royal mail steamer Curlew from Bt. George’s bay, on the west coast of Newfoundland, your correspondent has received tho full details of one of the most dismal and heartrending disasters that has ever been chronicled. Dui ing the terrific gftle of last week the ship Nonantum, of 1,000 tons burden, bound to Mar seilles, was lost near the Highlands of St. George's bay, and became a total wreck. Her whole crew, numbering seventeen, with the exception of two, perished miserably of cold, hunger and exposure to the inclemency of the winter skies. The two survivors are the mate and one of the seamen. As soon as the ship’s company discovered that there was not the Slightest hope of saving the ship they took to their boats, eleven taking refuge in the lifeboat and the remaining six in tho second boat. The third boat was stove in and swamped alongside the bark. Dr. Malcom, who attended the sufferers, tells the following story :

I was called on Thursday last to attend the two survivors, whose limbs were badly frost bitten, and will probably have to be amputated. During the intervals of their agony I gathered the story of their sufferings from the time they abandoned their vessel till I reached tlienp in tho hope of somewhat mitigating their pains. The names of the two survivors are George Kadger, first officer of the ship, and a native of Plymouth, England, and Patrick Dooley, an ordinary seaman, a native of Ca'rbonar, Newfoundland. “We had not long pushed away from the side of the wreck,” said Kadger, “when our boat upset aud we were all plunged into the water. We managed, however, to right her, but lest everything we had iu the boat, provisions, water, oars, clothing, and even onr rudder. Yet we were very fortunate in being able to right her at all. We were then in a terrible* condition. Neither compass, nor rudder, nor oars, nor bread, nor water, nor even a dipper to remove the water from the boat, now more than half filled. We were compelled to take our coats off to bale her out, which we succeeded in doing after some three or four hours of hard work. Wo were finally driven ashore, and tossed high and dry, without having sustained any serious accident or injury. After being on shore a couple of hours, our cook, a colored man, who had shown signs of exhaustion all night, died, and we buried him on tho seashore. The remaining ten of us climbed up the cliff iu the hope of seeing some sign or token that might lead us to a path or road that would in the long-run enable us to find out some settlement. When we reached the top of the cliffs nothing met our eyes but a long extent of low woods, across which nothing could be seen that would indicate any vestige of human life for miles at least in any direction. After traveling about in vain for six days without food or lire, and insufficient clothing, with the little strength that yet remained to us we mado a rude camp of evergreen boughs and lay down to die, believing that we scould never see a human face again, except during a few short hours our own haggard and hunger-pinched visages. After a little rest through the night, that brought little refreshment, we all determined to make one final effort to rescue ourselves from death in those solitary wilds.

“It was now Friday morning, and with shaking limbs and all the agony of hunger we rose one by ono from our chilly pallets and started once more in the hope of reaching some human habitation, but we were now a starving and broken-down crew. One by one dropped in the snow, to remain there forever. A few took a different course from us, but quickly disappeared, and we knev.’ that they had sunk down upon the cold ground, never to rise from it again. The Captain and myself and Dooley alone remained of the whole eleven who were washed ashore in the life-boat. The Captain did not stand long. Bis feet were frost-bitten so that he had to give up, and we left him behind. Dooly had no boots onnothing but pieces of canvas wrapped around his feet, and his feet were terribly swollen with the frost, and I was afraid I should be soon alone. But Dooley proved himself to be an iron man, and we held on till evening, when we lay down, but it was not long before the joyful view of two human beings approaching' us greeted our sight.” The two men proved to be two travelers from St. George’s bay. They were well equipped with food and other refreshments. A fire was quickly lighted, a refreshing cup of tea prepared, and bread and cold meat produced, which had an almost-magical effect on tho dying sailors. Kadger and his dying companion, Dooley, made a comparatively vigorous effort to get up, and the influence of a warm room had tho effect of reviving their almost-sus-pended animation. Kadger told, in feeble accents, to the welcome visitors the sad story of his own sufferings and tho.se of hri companions. He and Dooley had been ten days without food. They had left the Captain and four other seamen in a ravine some two miles distant. Kadger and Dooley, after being somewhat refreshed by the beverage administered to them, were brought to the nearest settlement and kindly cared for. Immediatelv a party was improvised to go in search of the Captain and the other seamen indicated by Kadger as lying half-frozen in the neighboring ravine. After a very diligent search the locality where these perishing wretches lav was discovered, but all save the Captain were locked in the rigidity of death. The Captain was badly frozen, but still showed sufficient evidences of vitality to warrant the hope that life might be spared. The bodies of the dead were as decently buried in the lone gorge as was possible with the meager means at disposal Capt. Johnson was then carried to the neigh* boring settlement by the rescuing party, but had hardly reached the warm hearths and hospitable homes of the dwellers amid the Highlands, when he died, after hours of protracted agony. It was noticed by the search-psMrty, before burying the companions of the Captain in the solitary gorge where they were found, that the arm of one man was completely eaten to the bone, as if the poignant agonies of starvation had incited the loathsome and abhorrent appetite of cannibalism. Kadger arid Dooley are both badly frost-bitten, and both are suffering from pulmonary congestion. They are likely to follow soon a fter their companions in suffering, and thus complete the round of this terrible tragedy.