(Condensed fom the Japan Daily Advertiser.
The tragic death of Captain Sams in the wreck of the Bokhara in October last robbed the P. & O. Company's service of an officer who from many points of view, was in advance of the majority of Captains and other officers, not only of that Company, but also of the general Mercantile Marine of Great Britain. As Sir Thomas Sutherland, the Chairman of the Company, well said, at the last annual meeting of the shareholders, Captain Sams was ' well equipped both physically and morally" for the of danger; and to see a man of his abilities and qualifications suddenly and for ever effaced from humanity, brings back the old impression and the old saying that it is the brightest and the best who are thus ent off, while the dullards and easygoing people of one idea or even of less, have the good fortune to escape such a sad and calamitous fate. Captain Sams was one of the junior Captains in the P. & O. Company that is to say although his entire life at sea from boyhood upward had been spent in their service, still there are men now, or there were a short time ago, in command of some of their vessels who were Captains in the days when he was an apprentice in their old sailing ship the Jadus. From the time when he completed the term of his apprenticeship, obtained his second mate's certificate, and became a junior officer in the ancient Colum. bian—a steamer long since relegated to the marine bone-yard—he was always distinguished for his steadiness, his industry, his progressive views avd liberal mindedness, and above all for the genial qualities and perfect Lonkomic of his character. As he rose step by step in the Company's service, he found more time and ampler opportunities for study, and it is not too much to say that ing embraced pretty well every modern question, social, scientific, philosophical, and artisti Speaking of P, & O. Captai tempted to overhaul some memories of those gentlemen as we found them a good many years ago, What old traveller—before the era of the Canal—does not remember that most jovial of old salts, Cuptain Thomas Jamieson, or Christian, or Almond, or Weeks, or Brooks; or the two Curlings, Robert and Willia he former of whom flew the Commodore's flag for years; or the Babots, George and James, the latter often called "Angel Babot" from the feeling of regard with which he inspired every one with whom, he came in contact; or the pompous Weston; or the heavy Wooleot; or the saintly Parish, who ought to have been a bishop but made none the worse Captain for that or jolly old Haselwood, one of whose sons was later on also Captain in the employment poor Dick who died suddenly at, Brindisi shortly after his brother died at Kobe; or Nathaniel Stewart, otherwise known (pi fully) as Lord Pitcairn, from his having married a certain Lady' Piteairn; or the gourmet Hall or the flat-footed Cornishman Blake; or Kelloch, who used to make regulations which he permitted no one but himself to break; or the manly, and indeed, somewhat heroic Greaves who was wont to select his sailors by their weight, putting them on the scale for the purpose, and who after his marriage became very' religions und took to reading tiresome sermons at Church Service on Sunday; or the fiery but kind-hearted Barlow whom nature in: tended to be a colonel of dragoons, and who followed out his predilections so far as to volunteer in the Indian Mutiny, for which he wore a medal, and, let us hope, weal this day; or Roskell, poutest of Captains an fest of Roman Catho-lies, whose rendering of " Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep" could never be forgotten by those who had the privilege of hearing "it; or the beetle-browed, deopvoiced, hearty, and altogether delightful Gaby,' who navigated the first P, & O. teainier that ever passed through the In:
Sea of Japan; or Castle, who some forty years ago, when a comparatively young, man, was the talk of England, a8 the hero. of the Sarah Sands; ov the two Dundases, true-hearted Ir men to the core; or a wonderful storyteller, and otherwise known Alphabetical Browne" from the multiplicity of his initials; or the fat Rennoldson, whose light spirits made up for his heavy weight; or the lanky Angov beau-ideal of courtesy and attention to h and now the Company's Marine Superintendent in London; or the upright, pure-minded Hume, who could read the Church Service twice as well as any parson with whom we have ever happened to come in contact; or Ikie Bernard, well-known on the coast of China, who made a large fortune by private trading. and who distinguished himself, when Captain of the old Malacca, by rescuing the passengers and crew of the rotten transport Meyera which, in order to prevent her sinking, was run on shore on St. Paul's Island in the Southern Ocean, when on her way to Australias or the slow-going Eastley, who also nade a considerable fortune in private trades or An-person, well known as a man-about-town in London; or the card-playing Johnson; or Baker, perhaps a little illiterate but crammed fall of nerve and resource; or the faithful Perrins, who lost his life " few years ago in the wreck of the Tasmania; or George Nelson Hector, sternest. of disciplinarians and the terror of junior officera, who always seemed to forget that he had once been a jonier
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.