Passenger ship bound for Australia catches fire in the South Atlantic, six hundred miles from land

The 1,368 ton passenger ship Eastern City, bound from Liverpool to Melbourne, Australia with a crew of 47 and 180 passengers discovered fire in the hold. The vessel was near the equator in the sixth week of its voyage and six hundred miles from land. The captain ordered all passengers on deck with the crew to fight the fire with little effect. Luckily, the British troopship Merchantman appeared the next day and all were taken off before the wreck finally burned and sank. Only one man, suffocated at the outbreak of the fire, died.  (By John Osborne)