Four of the crew of the ateamer Elgin, which has arrived at Hongkong, lost their fives at Saigon by inhaling foul gas generated in the tank-hold. Captain Miller gives the follow. ing recount:—On the 27th ult, we bad just eat down to dinner when the supercargo came and said one of his men had fallen in the tank-hold and was dead. We wont on deck and met our men coming from the forecastle fo anit in gttingtheman up, Two of them, Grandstrand and Hausen, stood on the iron deck to guide it off the coming, and another, Martin, went down to bend a line on the body. Immediately ho had done #0 he dropped insensible, Hansen, seeing something was wrong, at once jumped down, but immediately fell dead. Grandstrand them jumped down to Hansou's assistance and he also fell dead. I called to the rest of the men not to go down, but they did not seem to mind what was said, Montgomery, the boatswain, was the next to go down, He descended by the ladder and immodiately on touching the bags he also fell dead, Spencer, the cook, next went down and ho became insensible.' There were now six in the hold. A man named MoLeod then went down i ind round him and a handkerchief He succeeded in attaching cook, and the bouto enginoar went down to bend line on Hansen, but had to be pulled fore he succeeded in doing #0, Ho graze is hand in the hold and the wound hag become very bad, probably in consequence of its having been in contact with the poisonous az, Another man went down and passed a five round Hansen, and in less than half ime I heard of the Chinaman's the men had been brought on en, Montgomery, and Grand stroud were
alike until the doctor came, He ordered the bat we k eptopplying restoratives ite dead, as well as the China
cook and Martin to the hospital were conveyed there at once, but of danger until the following M and in fact were no more than went to bid them good-bye on We were obliged to keep the hatches on all the way from Singapore on account of the rain and to prevent the pas. sengers falling down, but had taken all of but one when we anchored at Saigon at 7 am, 80 that they bad been off for over four hours when the men went down. After geting the bodies laid out we half-filled an bucket with paraffin, set fire to it, and lowered it down into the tank-hold, but as soon as it passed the iron deck, above the tank-hold, it went out at once. We also put a fowl down and it died in a few minutes, the evening the authorities came off and took sample of the gas. At the same time we took one of the main tween deck batches off and put the bucket down there; the light went out at once. A sample of the air in this bold was also taken, We were obliged to put the batches on again all night. In the morning, after the batches had been off for some hours, we put a fowl down the main bold and it dropped dead at once, We kept the hatches off all that day (28th), but had to put them on again at night. Before putting the tank hatches on we put two fowls down and on taking them out on Monday morning they were going about quite
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.