The s.s. Ventnor

WELLINGTON, this day.

The s.s. Ventnor cleared this port on Sunday morning in fine weather with 2154* tons of coal shipped at Westport and 2843 tons shipped at Wellington valued at £4500, consigned to the Admiralty at Hong Kong; 499 Chinese coffins, 144 sacks and 22 bales of fungus, one bale tow, aud one bale flax.

Of the coffins 489 were insured in the Alliance Company for £5490. The fungus was insured for about £320 in various offices. She was under the charge of Captain H. Ferry, who has been seventeen years in the employment of the same company. The steamer was under charter to W. Scott Pell and Co., of Sydney, contractors. Messrs John Mill and Co., of Dunedin a-id Wellington, were the colonial agents. Of the coffins 459 were shipped by the Chohg Shin Tong Society, which is a branch of the big society in China called the Tai Chuen. The other ten coffins were shipped by Yei Chong, of Manners-street, and did not belong to any society. The Ventnor's crew numbered thirty-one, and those on board included nine Chinese body attendants. These attendants of the dead are old and decrepit Chinamen, who are being sent home to China by the Chong Shin Tong, and given sufficient money to keep them from work for the remainder of their lives.

The local agents state that everything was right with the vessel when she left Wellington. Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 257, 29 October 1902, Page 2

Two or three theories are current among the Chinese of the colony as to the cause of the loss of the hearse steamer Ventnor, which went down oft Hokianga three or four months ago, when laden with Celestial corpses hound for the far East. The most fantastic js that it arose from a personal feud , which the late Sew Hoy the wealthy Dunedinite, was concerned. Sew, it seems, had quarrelled with another Chinaman, and had threatened to fight him till the bodies were at the bottom of the sea. Well, the remains of both men were on the Ventnor, and their spirits the vendetta till Sew's shade fulfilled his vow, and sank the ship for the purpose. From the Chinese point of view this theory good enough as likely as that of the Christian missionary to the southern Chows, who sees in the occurrence an interposition of providence to prevent the bones from reaching Chrna, because there they would be the subject of idolatrous worship.

Observer, Volume XXIII, Issue 24, 28 February 1903, Page 16

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