Cottonwood Report

San Francisco, May 30.—In a strange vagary, the first news of the wreck of the Colima was received tonight at the Merchants' Exchange. A telephone message was received at the exchange saying that a resident of this city received a telegram this evening from his father, who was a passenger on the Colima. The telegram, as repeated to the Merchants' Exchange, was dated Manzanillo, May 28, and read as follows:

"Saved. Will wire further particulars."

The man who sent the telephone message did not give his name. R. P. Schwerin, superintendent of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, received the message notifying him of the disaster several hours after the telephone message was sent to the Merchants' Exchange. Therefore when inquiries were made early in the evening, the local representatives of the steamship company had learned nothing of the calamity, and in fact they doubted the authenticity of the news until the official message to the general manager confirmed the vague and anonymous report.

W. H. Avery, ticket clerk of the steamship company, said that probably the wreck occurred at Point Tepon, the headland which the Granada struck June 22, 1889. The point is not far from Manzanillo, which is the only telegraph station in that neighborhood. From Manzanillo came the first news of the wreck of the Granada.

According to her sailing schedule, the Colima would be due at Acapulco today.

The Colima was commanded by Captain J. P. Taylor, and was an iron vessel of 2,906 tons. She was built in 1873 by Roach & Sons, of Chester, Pa., and was owned by the Pacific Mail Company. Storekeeper Richardson, of the Colima, was the one who sent the first news of the disaster. It was he who sent the message to his son in this city that he had been saved. The Colima carried a very heavy cargo of general merchandise, and in addition to the cabin passengers carried a number of steerage passengers.

Assistant Superintendent Avery, of the Pacific Mail, stated late tonight that the Colima carried 192 people, and only nineteen were saved. There were forty cabin passengers, thirty-seven steerage, forty-three Chinese, and the crew numbered seventy-two. Most of the cabin passengers were bound through to New York. The statement of lost and saved is based upon the message to Superintendent Schwerin. This stated the ship was wrecked May 27, and that a ship's boat containing five of the crew and fourteen passengers arrived at Manzanillo today.