The year 1796 is rendered very memorable here by the fatal disaster which happened then at the ferry in the mart time. On the 23rd of February, about 6 o’clock in the evening, many people, to the number of forty or more, got into the ferry-boat; and though the boat-men remonstrated with them, as being too many to be taken over at once, yet so anxious were they to get over without further delay that none of them could be persuaded to get out and wait for the return of the boat, it was a calm evening, but the tide was coming in very strong. The boat however proceeded safely till it had almost reached the opposite shore, when passing across some ropes belonging to a vessel lying there, it received a violent concussion which laid it pretty much on one side: at that moment the passengers, instead of keeping their places, rushed headlong to the lower side, and thereby overset the boat in an instant. Eleven of them lost their lives; among whom was a man and his wife and daughter; also two young persons on the point of marriage, who were afterwards found clasped in each others arms. It is rather wonderful that so many of them were saved; but it was said to be owing to several boats being then very near the spot, which came almost instantly to their assistance, and succeeded in picking up and saving most of them. Although the Lynn ferry be but an awkward kind of passage, yet this seems to have been the only very serious accident that has occurred there for a very great length of time. Our ferry-men in general are somewhat more civil and decent than their brethren in other parts, who have often been classed among the most rude and brutish of all our countrymen. In 1797 a whale measuring 44 feet, (according to the Norfolk Remembrancer,) was caught in Lynn channel. In the course of the same year our farmers are said to have discovered cleansing seed-wheat _by water only_, (fresh water we suppose,) to be the best and most certain preservative against the smut or brand. If it be really so, many have been at a great deal of needless trouble and expense in preparing their seed-wheat. But such an imputation is by no means peculiar to our wheat growers. It is commonly the case in a progress of investigation and experiment. Many a highly and generally esteemed practice or usage, beside those that have obtained in the preparation of seed-corn, have been afterwards found far from deserving the high estimation they had acquired, and in which they had been long held. {979}