Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 April 1875 — Adventures on the Ice—Terrible Sufferings. [ARTICLE]

Adventures on the Ice—Terrible Sufferings.

Thb steamship Numberg, Capt. J aeger, which arrived at Baltimore on the 28th nit., from Bremen and Southampton, brought ten men who had been rescued from the jaws of death. The Baltimore papers give the following particulars: Of thirty-four men belonging to the fishing village of St. Mary’s, coast of Newfoundland, Who engaged in an adventure to rescue an abandoned vessel in the ice, thirteen were frozen to death, ten reached Baltimore, three are on a schooner hound to Bermuda, and the other eight were taken on a vessel hound to Newfoundland. Andrew Mooney, a man of thirty-six years, with an intelligent, honest countenance, who is among those on the Nurnberg, said yesterday that all were neighbors to each other and nearly all were born in St. Mary’s. He and a number of others have large families,-which they happed by fishing in the summer. The ice had been firm all winter and some of the villagers had gone out upon it frequently to hunt sea birds. It had shown no signs of moving before that" fatal day. Reports had been received lor a week from the headlands that a vessel was seen drifting about, hod oil the 2d of March the brig was discovered two and a half miles from their shore fast in the ice.. The party of thirty-four (all men but James Grace) was quickly gathered, and they started out on the ice to her and spent the day on board. Toward evening they started homeward, hut had siot proceeded far when the terrible fact was presented to them that the ice had parted between them and the shore and the opening was increasing every moment. Consternation seized upon them as they hastened forward, and each threw away his heavy outer clothing as he ran, to be encum-

bered as little as possible. When the brink of the ice was reached the space of water between them and the shore was half a mile wide, the ice having broken one mil© out from the land and the immense field upon which they stood, floating steadily further out to sea. It was novy quite dark, the party were exhausted and but half clad, and they prepared for the terrible cold which sooa set in. At first it rained until they were all wet to the skin. The rain then turned to sleet and snow, the; wind veered to the northward and the cold became intense, the fierce blasts of wind cutting them to the hope. Tb«n ■ began the effort for life, the men stomping their feet, Tunning madly about, ana the more sturdy encouraging the# weak and faltering. The cold still increased until, as Mooney‘says, it had reached a degree ofinteniity not equaled before in that latitude (hiring the winter. At midnight the cold and exhaustion began to tell upon the doomed ones in the little party. First one and then another of them would'lie down saying that he could go no further. The others would pick them up and try to keep them on their feet, but after reeling for a short distance like drunken men they would fall senseless upon the ice and die without a struggle. Those able to keep their feet had enough to do to keep themselves from falling into the fatal lethargy, and with sad hearts each victim was left to his fate. Father or son or brother saw each other fall and were powerless to help. When morning dawned seven corpses were counted at intervals Upon the ice, and of the remainder none could tell who was to be the next victim.

A field of ice twenty feet square floated-near the brink of the ice in the open water, upon which nine of them got, hoping that it would float toward file shore tee aud they could thus save themselves: When it had flouted yards from the ice upon which their comrades stood, it grounded, and.' the unfortunates remained upon it for three days and nights, during which time six of them died, the other three being those picked up by the schooner George 8. Fogg on fixe 6th of March. When it is remembered that seven perished the first night, it is wonderful that even three of the nine on the Small' ice-field escaped Alive, they having endured hunger as well as the cold. All the food they had in all that time was a small whiteflsh, which was frozen in the ice. This they divided between them. Of the three men two are on the Number*, via : John Fuer, in the ship’s hospital, badly frozen, and James Peddle. The eighteen men remaining after the nine floated off on the small ice-field made their way back to the abandoned brig, which was tightly jammed in the ice and was carried with it. All expected to die in her, and some of them had lost their senses before reaching her the second time. There were no stores on the brig, and they subsisted on molasses, a few oranges and edible scraps that could be fgund. Tfee fishermen. who admit they are unlettered, could not read her name, but knew she was not English. The crew had left jn the ice for Hollowroad, a village near St. Mary’s, March I. The brig moved with the ipe for a week in sight oi the land, and the fishermen were on her ten days. At length one evening at sunset a schooner was seen four miles away, which had been caught iu the same field that imprisoned the brig. That night the half-famished men held a council, and determined to reach the schooner next day or die in the effort. Next morning at daylight they embarked in the brig’s small boat, which could scarcely hold them all, and after straggling through the tee nearly all day reached the schooner George S. Fogg and were saved. There they met the three survivors of their nine comrades who left them nearly two weeks before; the three, singularly enough, having been saved by the same vessel which rescue£f*'the. other eighteen. Cart. Spence gave them plenty Of food, and if the prayers of those grateful, honest, poor Irish fishermen can avail to make his future life prosperous he will never want of this earth’s stores. The twenty-one fishermen and crew of seven over-crowded the little schooner, but the Captain had food enough for all, and all file discomfort they experienced was from their circumscribed- quarters. Borne of the most robust of the party perished, and some of the more frail escaped, among them the bov James Grace. On that terrible night, March 2, the boy and other delicate ones were placed in the middle of the throng as they stood or moved about, and thus secured some shelter. To a question as to how the news would be received in St. Mary’s, Mooney replied, as he brushed a tear away: ‘‘There is now mourning in every household, for they do not know any of us are saved.” He said he had six children, and that some of those who died have families equally aslarge. The ten men were taken in charge by the British Consul, who will send them home in the Caspian, which goes to Halifax this week.

—The other evening when a Sixth street father boxed his son’s ears as* a punishment for impudence the lad stood before him and remarked: “See here, lather, I was reading this morning that the dram of the ear is one of the most sensitive things in the human system. A sudden blow upon the ear is liable to produce deafness, and the practice of cuffing children cannot be too severely censured. It is but a relic of that dark period when a man with a wart on his nose was put to death as a sorcerer.— Danbury News. —Golden Hair. —Since ealden -hair is so muen in favor, it is well for mothers to know that thoy oaa preserve the golden color of tkeir children’s locks by a persistent and careful washing with csstile soap and water. The hair should be braided and dipped n peatedly into the suds and then wiped with a towel, and this operation should be performed once in four or five days. If persevered in, the roots of (be hair may darken as the child grows older, but the mass will keep its sunny tints as long as the owner wishes. Rzchanqe.

—A. gentleman in San Joaquin County, Cal., owns a flock of 2,000 ewe sheep, 1,300 of which had 2,400 lambs this season, thus increasing Ihe flock 120 per cent. Nearly all of the sheep produced twins, and twenty of them produced triplets- i-■ ¥■ -t. • - ; .-* ••• I —Patient to doctors after consultation: “Tell me the worst, gentlemen; am I going to diet” Doctors: “We are divided on that question, sir; but there is a majority of one that you will live”