Loss Of The Melville Castle.
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LOSS OF THE MELVILLE CASTLE.
Many and great are the dangers to which those who lead a seafaring life are exposed. The lightning's flash may strike a ship when far away from port, upon the trackless deep, or the sudden bursting of a particular kind of cloud, called a waterspout, may overwhelm her, and none be left to tell her fate. But of all the perils to which a ship is liable, I think that of her striking on a sand-bank, or on sunken rocks is the greatest. There must be men and women now living on the Kentish coast, in whose memory the disastrous wreck of the Melville Castle, with all its attendant horrors, is yet fresh. It is a sorrowful tale, doubly so, inasmuch as acts of imprudence, and still worse, of obstinacy, may be said to have occasioned the loss of four hundred and fifty lives.