Note 25 — Chapter IV · NORTH ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP COMPANIES.

The “Bourgogne” Disaster.—Since the sinking of the Eutopia in Gibraltar Bay in 1891, no such marine disaster has occurred as that which recently befell the SS. Bourgogne—a, tragedy in some respects the most appalling that has ever been recorded. This vessel of 7,795 tons—one of the finest of the French line of steamers—sailed from New York for Havre on the 2nd of July, 1898, with a ship’s company, including passengers and crew, of 726 souls. Early on the morning of the 4th, when about sixty miles south of Sable Island, during a dense fog, and while running at the rate of some eighteen knots an hour, she came into collision with the British sailing ship Cromartyshire, of 1,554 tons, and in a very short time foundered, carrying down with her about 520 persons. Had it not been for her collision bulkhead the Cromartyshire must have sunk, too. As it was, she was badly damaged, but hove to all day in the hope of picking up survivors. In the meantime the Allan SS. Grecian came up to the scene of the disaster, the rescued passengers were taken on board, and the disabled ship was towed into Halifax harbour. The survivors were the purser of the steamship, three engineers, thirty of the crew, and 170 passengers—204 in all. Of the seventy-two ladies in the first cabin only one was saved. Captain Deloncle, commander of the Bourgogne, was a lieutenant in the navy, and a knight of the Legion of Honour, having under him a competent staff of officers who appear to have done what they could to save the lives of others. All of them went down with their ship into the sailor’s grave. The loss of life was appalling, but even more heartrending were the accounts given of the barbarous conduct of some of the steerage passengers and sailors in the terrible struggle for self-preservation.