The Uncommercial Traveller | Page 7

whom I
well know that everything will be done that can be, according to
arrangements made before I left the scene of the awful catastrophe,
both as to the identification of my dear son, and also his interment.
I feel most anxious to hear whether anything fresh has transpired since
I left you; will you add another to the many deep obligations I am
under to you by writing to me? And should the body of my dear and
unfortunate son be identified, let me hear from you immediately, and I
will come again.
Words cannot express the gratitude I feel I owe to you all for your
benevolent aid, your kindness, and your sympathy.
MY DEARLY BELOVED FRIENDS. I arrived in safety at my house
yesterday, and a night's rest has restored and tranquillised me. I must
again repeat, that language has no words by which I can express my
sense of obligation to you. You are enshrined in my heart of hearts.
I have seen him! and can now realise my misfortune more than I have
hitherto been able to do. Oh, the bitterness of the cup I drink! But I bow
submissive. God MUST have done right. I do not want to feel less, but
to acquiesce more simply.
There were some Jewish passengers on board the Royal Charter, and
the gratitude of the Jewish people is feelingly expressed in the
following letter bearing date from 'the office of the Chief Rabbi:'
REVEREND SIR. I cannot refrain from expressing to you my heartfelt
thanks on behalf of those of my flock whose relatives have

unfortunately been among those who perished at the late wreck of the
Royal Charter. You have, indeed, like Boaz, 'not left off your kindness
to the living and the dead.'
You have not alone acted kindly towards the living by receiving them
hospitably at your house, and energetically assisting them in their
mournful duty, but also towards the dead, by exerting yourself to have
our co-religionists buried in our ground, and according to our rites.
May our heavenly Father reward you for your acts of humanity and true
philanthropy!
The 'Old Hebrew congregation of Liverpool' thus express themselves
through their secretary:
REVEREND SIR. The wardens of this congregation have learned with
great pleasure that, in addition to those indefatigable exertions, at the
scene of the late disaster to the Royal Charter, which have received
universal recognition, you have very benevolently employed your
valuable efforts to assist such members of our faith as have sought the
bodies of lost friends to give them burial in our consecrated grounds,
with the observances and rites prescribed by the ordinances of our
religion.
The wardens desire me to take the earliest available opportunity to offer
to you, on behalf of our community, the expression of their warm
acknowledgments and grateful thanks, and their sincere wishes for your
continued welfare and prosperity.
A Jewish gentleman writes:
REVEREND AND DEAR SIR. I take the opportunity of thanking you
right earnestly for the promptness you displayed in answering my note
with full particulars concerning my much lamented brother, and I also
herein beg to express my sincere regard for the willingness you
displayed and for the facility you afforded for getting the remains of
my poor brother exhumed. It has been to us a most sorrowful and
painful event, but when we meet with such friends as yourself, it in a
measure, somehow or other, abates that mental anguish, and makes the

suffering so much easier to be borne. Considering the circumstances
connected with my poor brother's fate, it does, indeed, appear a hard
one. He had been away in all seven years; he returned four years ago to
see his family. He was then engaged to a very amiable young lady. He
had been very successful abroad, and was now returning to fulfil his
sacred vow; he brought all his property with him in gold uninsured. We
heard from him when the ship stopped at Queenstown, when he was in
the highest of hope, and in a few short hours afterwards all was washed
away.
Mournful in the deepest degree, but too sacred for quotation here, were
the numerous references to those miniatures of women worn round the
necks of rough men (and found there after death), those locks of hair,
those scraps of letters, those many many slight memorials of hidden
tenderness. One man cast up by the sea bore about him, printed on a
perforated lace card, the following singular (and unavailing) charm:
A BLESSING.
May the blessing of God await thee. May the sun of glory shine around
thy bed; and may the gates of plenty, honour, and happiness be ever
open to thee. May no sorrow distress thy days; may no grief disturb thy
nights. May the