Woolwich is associated with one of the most terrible shipwrecks of modern times. A good many years have passed since the wreck of the pleasure-steamer _Princess Alice_ thrilled London, but there are many yet living who remember the occasion. The _Princess Alice_ plied frequently in the summer between London and Gravesend, and was generally crowded. She was exceptionally well filled on that fatal day, September 3rd, 1878. More than eight hundred people were aboard. London trippers are proverbially jolly, and those who in those days made holiday at Gravesend and Rosherville were folk of exuberant spirits. Music and dancing occupied the attention of the holiday folk on the return voyage, and all went well until after passing Gallions Reach and rounding Tripcock’s Tree Point. Night had fallen upon the broad and busy river, and coming swiftly down-stream appeared the lights of a large screw-steamer, the _Bywell Castle_ collier. The captains of both vessels were taken by surprise, and both lost their presence of mind, with the result that the _Bywell Castle_ struck the _Princess Alice_ immediately forward of her engine-room, and cut her in two. In less than four minutes the _Princess Alice_ had sunk, and 670 persons were drowned. Some few, with the exercise of much agility, jumped aboard the collier at the moment of the collision, but many were women and children, and many more were in the saloon, and were caught there, as in a trap. It was finally decided in litigation that the _Princess Alice_ was alone to blame for the disaster. Some of the drowned were buried in Woolwich Cemetery, where a monument stands, erected by a “national sixpenny subscription” contributed by over 23,000 subscribers. Around it are long lines of small stones, marking where the dead lie. The inscription on the monument gives figures considerably at variance from those given in books of reference. It states: “It was computed that seven hundred men, women, and children were on board. Of these about 550 were drowned. One hundred and twenty were buried near this place.” This melancholy spot is situated on the one-time pleasant hill-side above Plumstead, between Woolwich and Abbey Wood; close to where Bostal Woods still look down from their craggy heights upon the wide-spreading marshes of Plumstead and Erith. This was once an exceedingly delightful escarpment, densely clothed with noble woods and vigorous undergrowth, stretching away to Erith, but the suburban expansion of London is spoiling it. Cemeteries--the abodes of the dead--and little mean streets of houses, scar the once rustic hill-sides, and along the road that goes to Erith, down in the levels, the electric trams run swiftly. But the place-names are still fragrant: Abbey Wood, Picardy, Belmont, and Belvedere; and indeed the great Abbey Wood is still very much more than a name.