A late hurricane had caught a number of ships off the coast of South Carolina and the Star Line steamship Evening Star on its regular run from New Orleans to New York City foundered with a heavy loss of the lives of most aboard, which included among them a New Orleans female opera company and a circus troupe. Of the 270 people aboard only twenty-two were reported to have survived, floating on upturned lifeboats in three small groups for days before being rescued or reaching land. (By John Osborne)