Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1894 — TORN IN TWO AND SUNK. [ARTICLE]

TORN IN TWO AND SUNK.

Report of the Loss of the Rebel Transport Venus Confirmed. Rio Janeiro advices say that the repurts of the loss of the rebel transport Venus have teen confirmed, but the details of the loss of the vessel are meager. Friday morning the armed rebel transports Jupiter, Marte and Venus, which are lying off Porto Madama, took up positions and cpened bombardment against the government batteries. The guns in the batteries responded quickly and a lively fire was exchanged. Suddenly there was a terrific roar heard above the booming of the guns and it was at once conjectured that an explosion had occurred. At first it was thought that disaster had befallen the transport Mater. Immediately after the sound of the explosion was heard the men in the batteries and elsewhere along the shore saw a hugh cloud column of reddish brown smoke ascending and spreading out to wide dimensions as it rose. It was seen as the smoke cleared away a little that the explosion had occurred on the Venus. The vessel had been torn in half, and almost immediately afterward the stern half of the wreck went to the bottom. The bow half was on fire and in a few minutes the flames were raging furiously. This portion of the vessel floated for a half hour and then went down. The Venus was commanded by Capt. Vasconcellos. He, with three officers and twenty-nine men, made up the complement of the vessel. Every soul on board was lost. Some of the crew could be seen for a time on the forward part of the vessel as it drifted helplessly burning, and efforts were made to rescue them, but the boats that were dispatched on this work were slow in reaching the scene of the dissster, and by the time they arrived the men on the wreck were forced by the fire into the water. Many theories are current as to the cause of the disas’er. The most probable of these is that a shot from the shore batteries struck the Venus amidships anl plowed its way through the hull and boilers.