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Show i 400 WERE DROWSED. I An Italian Emigrant Ship Sank in the Mediterranean Sea with a Fear- I ' ful Loss of Life. j IMPALED ON A WAESHIP'S BAM Tie IU-Fated Utopia Went to the Bot- I torn Amid the Awful Shrieks of J Women and Children. 1 j Gibraltar, March 18. The steam- I ship Utopia, from Italian ports, bound I to New York, with 700 Italians aboard. I collided yesterday with the British ironclad, liodncv, anehored in Gibral- tar bay, and sank soon after. A south- I West gale was blowing at I he time. I One account of the disaster attributes j it to the fact that the Pritish warship V Anson was drifting before a gale and I rammed the Utopia abaft the funnel. I The Utopia was impaled ou a spur of the Anson's ram and al- most immediately sank. Every- J thing possible was done by I tho officers and seamen. Four seamen J were washed overboard and drowned from one of the warship's s'teaiu I launches while taking part in the 1 rescue. 1 The scene after the collision was I frightful. One side of the sinking jj steamship was crowded with 70'J immigrants shrieking with terror. I Right and left of the sink- ing vessel were the monster j battleships Rodney and Anson pouring the light of their powerful electric re- I Hectors upon the disabled steamship. Here and there were the warships' I small boats manned by blue jackets who strained every nerve as they bent 3 to oars in the heavy sea, striving gal- flantly to reach thedrowuing passengers. The rescued passengers are estimated to I mini her a! out 20o, possibly more and j , are cared for ou the war ships or taken ashore and housed iu the government buildings. 1 At th a hour, 3:30 p, in., tho number 1 of persons saved is said to be 331 ami j the loss of life about 40;), possibly less, j Already 32 bodies have been recovered. A Divers from the war ships aro at work i above tho spot where the Utopia sank J seeking to recover the dead bodies. J The divers and the boats' crews who 1 have been at work all day in the efforts I being made by tho British naval au- ' tliorities to rescue as many as possible ' of tho bodies of the passengers and crew of the sunken steamer. Utopia, have at this hour rescued ninety ! bodies. Among those saved from the sinking vessel by tho boats of tho men-of-war wero twenty of the Utopia's crew. C. M. Davis of Boston, a saloon passenger is among those re ported missing. The ollicers nnd crew of H. M. S. Anson stated that the Utopia Uto-pia fouled with the ram of the Anson ami thus caused the damage, which resulted re-sulted in thepassengersleamcrsinking. The Anson's ollicers assert no blame can be attached to the war vessel. |