When will the first first-hand news of what really happened to the Titanic reach England?SHIP THAT BRINGS THE TRUTH. So far as is known at present, the only true story is with tragic lips on board the Carpathia. It does not appear as though the Carpathia is going to let any details be made public until she lands in New York. Yesterday American imaginative journalism took its first night, and stories were circulated and telegraphed to London from New York newspapers, purportine to describe the actual scenes at the wreck of the Titanic, and to be based upon wireless messages from the British steamer Bruce. Subsequent inquiries showed that the Bruce had not been in touch with the Titanic or ony other steamer near the scene of the disaster. A Reuter message states that the Carpathia was 198 miles east of Ambrose Channel at 6.10 a.m. yesterday, American time. In English time this is 11.10 a.m. Ambrose Light is twenty miles from New York, so that this extra mileage has to be added to the total of 498 miles, making the Carpathia 518 miles east of New York at 4 a.m. (Greenwich time) yesterday morning. The Carpathia, it was officially announced by the Cunard Company yesterday, will not reach New York until eight o'clock to-night (New York time), which is one o'clock to-morrow morning (Greenwich time).
HALIFAX, April 17.The cableship Mackay-Bennett, has been chartered by the White Star Company to go to the scene of the Titanic disaster.CABLESHIP'S GRIM ERRAND. In the hope that some bodies may be picked up coffins are being taken, and several undertakers and embalmers will be on the ship. The Mackay Bennett sailed at two o'clock. To addition to the undertakers, she carries a Church of England clergyman, who will perform the last rites over any bodies that may be found.Reuter. SON'S TRAGIC MISSION. HALIFAX (N.S.), April 17.Colonel Jacob Astor's son arrived here this morning, and he is chartering a steamer for the purpose of going in search of his father's body.Exchange.
The King and Queen have once more shown their practical sympathy with their distressed and suffering subjects by subscribing handsomely to a fund which the Lord Mayor of London opened yesterday on behalf of those who have suffered by the Titanic disaster.RELIEF FUNDS OPENED. The King and Two Queens Send Nearly £1,000 to Mansion House. At the Easter banquet at the Mansion House last night the Lord Mayor announced that he had received the following telegrams :
York Cottage, Sandringham.
I am commanded to inform your Lordship that the King subscribes five hundred guineas and the Queen two hundred and fifty guineas to the Mansion House Fund your Lordship is so kindly raising for the relief of those who are in need through the awful shipwreck of the Titanic.William Carrington.
Sandringham.
Queen Alexandra will give £300 towards the fund which your Lordship is raising for the relief of the relatives of those who have lost their lives in the terrible disaster to the Titanic.Colonel Streatfeild. By last night, the Lord Mayor, to use his own words, had " within a few hours, a considerable sum, amounting to thousands of pounds, in handa tribute to the generosity of the British public." The appeal was instituted largely at the request of the Mayor of Southampton, where the distress is especially acute, but the fund will not only be for relatives of the crew, but for all those left in distress by deaths in the disaster. Among the other donations received at the Mansion House yesterday were : Messrs. Morgan. Grenlall and Co, .......... £2,000 0 0 Messrs. Speyer Brothers ............................ 1,050 0 0 Mr. Edward Grenfell ..................................... 1.000 0 0 N. M. Rothschild and Sons ........................... 525 0 0 Baring Brothers and Co., Ltd. ........................ 500 0 0 J. Lyons and Co., Ltd. ..................................... 105 0 0 In Southampton, too, subscriptions are pouring in. The Shippiny Federation telegraphed, promising a contribution of £2,100 to the relief fund. The Toronto City Council, says Reuter, has granted £1,000 in aid of the families of sufferers from the Titanic disaster, while Mr. Oscar Hammerstein bas promised to give a concert matinee in aid of the fund. From the orphanages, too, help has corne. The Orphan Working School and Alexandra Orphanage, Haverstock Hill, will admit twenty Titanic orphans, while the Spurgeon Orphinage has promised to find room for twelve girls.
The Daily Mail, which has also opened a fund, makes a special appeal to the women of England."DAILY MAIL'S" APPEAL TO WOMEN The appeal is on behalf of the " fatherless children, widows and necessitons dependents of the men who perished with such sublime courage and self-sacrificing devotion in the great disaster." The Daily Mail heads the list with a donation of £500, and Queen Alexandra and Princess Henry of Battenberg have expressed their hearty sympathy and wish all success to the fund. Contributions should be marked " Women's Fund" and sent to "The Chief Clerk," The Daily Mail, Carmelite House, E.C. |
STORY MR. STEAD COULD HAVE TOLD.
There seems no more room for hope that the greatest Englishman on board the Titanic has survived the catastrophe. GreatJournalist Given Up for Lost : His Son's Hope. "AMONG THE LAST." Man Who Could Have Written the Truth of the Titanic Disaster. THE SEEING EYE. Death's cold, ironie band fell upon William Thomas Stead. one of the grandest joutnalists of his time. and prevented him from recounting the most awful catastrophe that any journalist has ever witnessed. His son in Johannesburg, while hoping against hope, is confident that his father would have been among the last to leave the ship. If he be indeed among the dead, not England alone, but the world, will mourn the loss of one of its great men. For Mr. Stead was a world-politician, a friend of freedom, an enemy of oppression in any form througbout the globe. The greatest tragedy of Mr. W. T. Stead's life was that, being present at the most disastrous shipwreck in the world's history, he was unable to send off a full and vivid descriptive account of what really happened. He had more than an eloquent pen, he had the seeing eyea rarer gift. He was the greatest truth-seer, and the greatest and most fearless truth-speaker. Nothing would have been kept back of the last terrible hours of the Titanic. We should have had the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. His story would have covered everything that there was to be seen. We should have had a story, every detail of which could be relied upon. His sense of what was news and his method of getting at the facts were remarkable.
DON QUIXOTE OF JOURNALISM.
It was fitting that Mr. Stead should be present at the greatest shipping disaster of all time. For everything that he had done had been on the grand scale. He had interviewed Tsars and Kaisers, Kings and Cardinals, and had accomplished more newspaper "scoops" than any other living Journalist.He was on intimate terms with Such giants as Mr. Gladstone, Cecil Rhodes, Cardinal Manning, Count Tolstoy, Canon Liddon, and a host of other celebrities. And he made use of every one of them for his own particular end in noble disregard of consequences or conventions. Mr. Stead was the Don Quixote of journalism. He was as strenuous as Roosevelt and as inspired as General Booth, while his personality sometimes dominated one like Gladstone's did. While eternally waging war, he was one of the greatest workers for peace who ever lived. The principal forces by, which he made his way through life were an unhesitating belief in his own powers, and in the justice of any case he might espouse; and an innate, unshrinking fearlessness. It was all one to him whether, as he sometimes did, he felt the strength of public opinion at his back, or whether, as also happened, his views were anathema to the great public.
ROUSED MAMY ANTAGONISTS.
It was his fate to be denounced more often and more loudly as a " lunatic " and a " crank " than any of bis contemporaries. He was a furiously outspoken pro-Boer at a time when the expression of such opinions was fraught with real personal danger. But he never considered this.When he addressed the Zemstvo delegates at Moscow he set the entire meeting against him by his eulogistic references to General Trepoff, the Dictator of St. Petersburg, a red-hot reactionary, who had just attained notoricty by running a disobedient orderly through the body with his sword, and also by shooting five men in a street riot, as an example to his troops. From the first he had the knack of attracting public attention. While still comparatively a young man and editor of the Northern Echo, his articles on the Bulgarian atrocities attracted the attention of Gladstone, Thomas Carlyle and John Morley. It was the last-named who gave Stead his chance in London by offering him the assistant editorship of the Pall Mall Gasette, in the year 1880. When a little later Morley went to Parliament, Stead succeeded to the complete control of the paper. How the Pall Mall Gasette flourished under his editorship, and how he shocked London by the series of articles under the title of "The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon," are matters of history. So are his trial and imprisonment. With unabated courage be continued to edit the paper from his cell in Clerkenwell. Once a year up to the end he always put on prison clothes on the anniversary of his wedding. His next venture was the starting of the " Review of Revieur»," in collaboration with Sir George Newnes, subsequently buying him out and running it single-handed. The antagonism he occasionally excited in some minds may be gauged by the following extract from an " Open Letter " addressed to him through the columns of a London journal : Like your father, the Devil, yousow tares broadcast while good men sleep; and many of them falling into the propitious soil of-youth and innocence, are bound to spring up and multiply. If Socrates was put away as a corrupter of youth, how much more do you deserve to be bowstrung, oh, you pernicious scribe, Pharisee, Hypocrite! Later in life, he started a campaign against theatres. His criticism after seeing his first West End music-hall was: "If I had to sum up the whole programme, I should say, ' Drivel from the dregs !' " Afler seeing « performance in « well-known musical comedy theatre, it was: "A pestilent and pestiferous farrago of filth." But he applauded the performance of " La Milo." |
"JULIA'S BUREAU."
A couple of years ago he again startled people with "Julia's Bureau" - which was " a tentative effort to build a bridge across the grave by which it is possible to commuinicate with chose who have passed over to the other side after the change which is called death." A "conversation" with Mr. Gladstone was one of the resutls.A project which he concelved too hastily was his great idea of the Daily Paper, which was to bind its readers together as they had never been linked together before on a paper. It was not thought out with sufficient care, and collapsed ingloriously after a week or two, and Mr. Stead lost a large sum of money. His strenuous methods and his earnestness of purpose may best be summed up in the late King Leopold of Belgium's words after Stead had interviewed him about Gordon, who was then shut up in Khartum. " Stead !" exclaimed Leopold to someone who asked what he thought of him and the interview. "It was terrible; how that man made me swent." One of the very last letters he wrote was to The Daily Mirror just before he sailed. and was concerned with his daughter's career as an actress. Born sixty-three years ago, he was the son of the Rev. W. Stead, a Congregational minister at Embleton, in the north, and in after life showed traces of the education which moulded his life. For he was sometimes bigoted and intolerantbut never, by any chance, dull. It was stated at a Congregational conference at Blyth yesterday that Mr. W. T. Stead's sister had just undergone a serious operation in a Newcastle hospital.
Mr. Stead had set out for America witb the intention of speaking in New York in connectiOn with the " Men and Religion Forward Movement." In the light ot present events, his last words in the current number of the " Review of Reviews " make singularly pathetic reading.MR. STEAD'S LAST HOPE. "For some time past," writes Mr. Stead, it has been noted in the United States that the Churches are falling more and more into the hands of women. " . ... To arrest this tendency and to restore the requisite masculine element to popular religion in the States a syndicate was formed for the purpose of uniting Evangetical Churches in America, and of combining effort to bring men and boys into the Church." " The committee has been kind enough to ask me to address a meeting, held under their auspices, on the 'World's Pence' in Carnegie Hall, New York, on April 21, at which President Taft and others will be among the speakers. " I expect to leave by the Titanic on April 10, and hope I shall be back in London in May." On that day, too, April 10, he wrote the letter to The Daily Mirror, which showed that his daughter's interests were the last thing he thought about before sailing.
We publish with all reserve the following message, which is not credited in New York, and must not raise false hopes here :REPORT OF 250 MORE SURVIVORS HALIFAX (Nova Scotia). April 17.The wireless operator of the cable steamer Minia, reports having received a message announcing that 250 of the Titanic's passengers are on board the White Star liner Baltic. The operator adds that thc message did not come from the Baltic, and the name of the steamer through which the news was retransmitted is not known. Reuter.
Other news of the Titanic disaster appears on page 4 and 5. |
After careful comparison with the liste of names of survivors publisbed yesterday morning, the following names appear to be additions to the total of those previously reported as rescued :STEERAGE NAMES TO COME.
FIRST CLASS.
Mr. Washington Dodge, of Phelps, Dodge, and Co., well-known New York bankers.
SECOND CLASS.
Mr. Bernardo Encarnacion, Miss Millie Mallcroft, Mrs. Jacques, Miss Rossette, Mrs. Florence Mars, Mrs. W. H. Sholberry.Mrs. Charles Williams. THIRD CLASS. WASHINGTON, April 17.The Navy Department has received the following wireless telegram, via Fortland, from Commander Decker, of the United States scout-cruiser Chester: " The Carpathia states that list first, second class passenger sent shore. Chester will relay list third-class passengers when convenient to Carpathia." This is taken to mean that the list telegraphed from the Carpathia to the station at Cape Race through the Olympic, and retelegraphed to Reuter's London office yesterday morning, contained the names of all the first and second class passengers saved.Reuter.
NOT ENOUGH LIFEBOATS.
One of the most important questions wbich has been raised in consequence of the disaster is whether therewere a sufficient number of lifeboats on the Titanic. Titanic's Builder Blames Government for Inadequate Regulations. The Right Hon. A. M. Carlisle, who, formerly general manager to Messrs. Harland and Wolff, built the Titanic and partly designed her, said, when interviewed yesterday by The Daily Mail, that he did not consider the lifeboat accommodation required by the Board of Trade regulations was suficient. " I do not think it is sufficient for big ships," he said, "and I never did. As ships grew bigger I was always in favour of increasing the lifeboat accommodation. Yet it remains the same for a ship of 50,000 tons as for one of 10,000. " When working out the designs of the Olympic and the Titanic I put my ideas before the davit constructors, and got them to design me davits which would allow me to place, if necessary, four lifeboats on each pair ot davits, which would have meant a total of over forty boats. "Those davits were fitted in both ships. But, though the Board of Trade did not require anything more than the sixteen lifeboats, twenty boats were supplied. " The White Star Company did, of course, supply boats of very much greater capacity than those required by the Board of Trade. I think I am correct in saying that the provision, in cubic capacity, was practically double that which was required. "At the same time, it was nothing like suficient, in case of accident, to take off the majority of the passengers and crew. "I have no doubt that the Government of this country, and the Governments of other countries, will now look more seriously into the matter."
In the House of Commons on Monday Mr. Douglas Hall will ask the Prime Minister whether the Government are prepared, in view of the grave loss of life attending the wreck of the Titanic, to appoint a committee to inquire into the whole question of the supply of boats on ships of the mercantile marine, and other means of saving life at sea.CALL FOR BETTER REGULATIONS Also to consider the efficacy of the existing Board of Trade regulations, with a view to the adoption of more effective means in the near future. |
Mr. Walter Winans, the millionaire sportsman, expresses himself sensibly on the disaster.SAFETY WANTED, NOT LUXURY. "Does it not seem strange, charging a passenger £870 for the best stateroom on the Titanic," be writes to The Daily Mirror, " and not giving him in a private lifeboat? I am sure it would pay better than giving him a lot of useless decoration. "By the way, the Titans defied the gods and were thrown into the sea, so it was a bad-omened name to give a ship."
At a quarter to eleven yesterday morning the White Star Line received the following telegram from their head offices in Liverpool : " Have received following from Captain Haddock, of the Olympic, via Celtic";FOUR OFFICERS SAVED. Please allay rumours that Virginian has any Titanic passengers. Neither has the Tunisian. Believe only survivors on Carpathia. Second, third, fourth, fifth officers and second Marconi operator only officers reported saved. The names of the officers reported saved are respectively Messrs E. H. Ligbtoller, H. J. Pitman, J. G. Boxhall and H. G. Lowe. The Marconi operator is Harold Bride.
The enactment of a law regulating the promiscuous use of wireless telegraphy and the exclusion of amateur and irresponsible operators from the freedom of the air, is likely to be one sequel of the Titanic catastrophe, says a Reuter special message from New York.AMATEURS OF WIRELESS. Measures of this sort have been pending for some time, but the present situation will undoubtedly force immediate action. Of course, no concrete programme for Congress has yet been determined upon, but it is probable that the officials of the White Star Line will be summoned to state the precautions for safety taken on board their liners. Mr. Taft is talking a keen Personal interest in all the features of the proposed regulation of passenger vessels. |
One of the most pathetic features of the Titanic disaster are the shoals of wireless messages sent by relatives and friends to people on the Titanic messages which were destined never to be delivered.WIRELESS TO THE DEATH. Shoals of Messages to Passengers Destined Never To Be Delivered. On Monday last large numbers of wireless messages were sent to Titanic passengersmany were addressed to Mr. W. T. Stead. At the time the wires were dispatched it was believed that the passengers were safe, and the telegrams contained optimistic messages of congratulation and even business news. But hours before the first news of the collision arrived in London there was no Titanic, and the wireless messages, sent via Cape Race, flashed across nothing but dreary icefloes and wreckage. " The one object of the wireless operators at the land stations and on the liners has been to save life," an official of the Marconi Company told The Daily Mirror. "They have been almost wholly occupied with dispatching service wires, and only during lulls have they been able to attend to private wires. "At such a terrible time all purely private messages must have second place. " In the ordinary way the dispatching of wireless messages to the Carpathia would take remarkably short time. "A telegram can be handed in in London, and would be received by the wireless operator aboard the Carpathia within five minutes."
Have been in collision with iceberg.We are in a sinking condition and require urgent assistance."SINKING!"-TITANIC'S CRY. This was the message flashed from the Titanic to the Cunard liner Caronia in Mid-Atlantic. But the Caronia was 700 miles awaytoo far to be of assistance, as her master, Captain Barr, sadly explained last night when the vessel arrived at Queenstown. Captain Barr said It was on Monday morning, at half-past four, in lat. 43.45N., long. 42.20W., that he received the wireless appeal from the Titanic, which further stated that she had been in collision with an iceberg. Not near enough to render assistance himself, Captain Barr sent wireless messages out indicating to steamers nearer the Titanic than he was the nature of the accident to that vessel. The intelligence created a painful sensation on board, and Captain Barr's officers and crew deeply regretted that they were precluded from being of service to those on the sinking liner.
The last known message from the Titanic before the disaster was received by the Tunisian, which yesterday reported on arrival at Liverpool, speaking the Titanic by wireless on Saturday midnight, and sending a message, " Good luck." To this the Titanic replied: "Many thanks. Good-bye."TITANIC'S LAST "GOOD.BYE."
It is anticipated that the passengers who had boked for the second voyage of the Titanic fron Southampton to New York on May 1 will suffer little inconvenience.THE TITANIC'S SUBSTITUTE. If the Olympic does not arrive at Southampton in time, The Majestic will sail on Wednesday next. |
A vivid narrative of his voyage through the huge Atlantic icebergs which wrecked the Titanic was given to The Daily Mirror last night by Dr. MacCormac, a London anaesthetist, who arrived at Liverpool yesterday in the Allan liner Tunisian.VIGIL AMID ICE. Liner's Captain on Bridge for Two Days Among Bergs. 168 SEEN IN ONE DAY. "The Tunisian left St. John's (Newfoundland) last Sunday week," said Dr. MacCormac, " and we came into the ice region on the following Tuesday. " It was clear, but bitterly cold, and, as sailors say, we ' smelt ice ' long before we came to it. " Our position on Tuesday week, when we first saw the ice, was 48N., 43W. The mass was moving southwards, and it was undoubtedly the same icefield into which the Titanic ran five days later in 40N., 61W. " The ice was of two kindsfield ice and bergs. The former, composed of thousands of blocks about twelve feet square, closely parked together, was practically on a level with the sea.
DAY'S STEAMING THROUGH ICE.
" It was estimated to be quite sixteen miles wide, and its length can be judged from the fact that we steamed slowly alongside it all day on Tuesday." At times we were within a quarter of a mile of the icefield, and it almost looked as if one could step off the ship and take a walk on the packed mass. " We steamed very slowly throughout Tuesday and all Wednesday morningsometimes only just fast enough to keep ' way ' on the Tunisian. " So careful was Captain Fairhall that he hardly ever left the bridge, and he did not, I was told, take off his clothes for fifty-seven hours. " The isolated bergs seen from the ship were far more terrible and impressive than the icefield, for they moved faster and were, of course, more dangerous. " I did not count them myself, but several passengers did so, and all agreed that we passed no fewer than 168 in the twenty-four hours of Tuesday week last. " They were of all shapes and sizes. One looked just like the crater of a volcano, and others were flat, jagged, pyramidal, and all kinds of fantastic shapes.
HIGH AS BIG BEN.
" The biggest iceberg I saw was wider than the Thames at Waterloo Bridge, and was at least as high as Big Ben." Yon must remember, too, that about one-ninth of an iceberg appears above water. Most of them looked as if they were coated with snow. " As we could not find a passage through the icefield, although we did ' cut off corners ' by gently forcing our way through the blocks, we had to come farther south than we intended. Consequently we are a day late in getting home. " The Titanic was signalled as having passed us all right during the week, and we did not know of her terrible fate until the pilot came aboard off Liverpool.
" If only the thousands of others waiting could get the same glad tidings as I have here ! "PARENTS' MAGIC TELEGRAM. It was the first grateful exclamation of Mr. A. J. Bride, of Shortlands, when he had the wonderful joy of learning yesterday that his son, the second wireless operator, was safe after all. " I could not believe my son was alive," Mr. Bride told The Daily Mirror. " It seemed that he must be drowned with the majority of the passengers and crew. " Then came this wonderful telegram. The news seemed incredible. I was quite overcome by it."
One inexplicable feature of the disaster, says a Reuter's special message, is how the Titanic headed into the iceberg after the ship had been warned of such a danger by the Amerika only a few minutes before the collision.TWICE WARNED OF ICEBERG. Nor was the Amerika's the only information received. The Touraine had radiographed to the Titanic on the 14th, warning her of the position of the bergs, and the Titanic answered the warning. The Etonian's officers, who think that possibly sailing vessels may have picked up some of the survivors, believe they saw and photographed the very iceberg that sent the new liner to her grave.
Mr. Hays, the president of the Grand Trunk Railway, his wife and daughter are safe on board the Carpathia, says an Exchange messageDISASTER ITEMS. The captain of the Allan liner Parisian, delayed by fog, reports by wireless that no Titanic passengers are on board, and adds that he thinks, all survivors are on the Carpathia. A memorial service for those who have lost their lives on the Titanic will be held in St. Paul's Cathedral to-morrow at noon. No tickets will be issued or required by the general public. Asked to show their respect for the brave men on the Titanic, a large crowd of seamen outside the offices of the National Sailors and Firemen's Union yesterday raised their hats and caps in reverent silence. It is officially arrangcd that the Majestic will take the place of the Titanic on the Southampton-New York service. If the Olytnpic does not arrive at Southampton in time, the Majestic will sail on Wednesday next. |
NO NEWS YET.
A youth of sixfeen was seen weeping bitterly. His father, he said, was a fireman on the Titanic."I have nobody left now," he added. "My mother died a few weeks ago." Hour after hour the enquiries went on. People -men and women of all ages and classes, English and Americanthronged the office, questioning the clerks and scanning the typed slips of names on the notice boards. Hardly anyone spoke above a whisper, and none seemed to find the information they had come for. There was " No news yet ; Carpathia was probably out of touch of land. But there might be news at any moment." That was what the sympathetic officials had to say nearly all day. There was one bright spot in the morning's pitiful round. All day Tuesday a young wife haunted the Leadenhall-street office of the company waiting for word of her husband. But none came, and at last, sad and worn out, she went home. Yesterday morning good tidings were flashed across the wires; her husband was among the second-class passengers saved and safely aboard the Carpathian. She was instantly told by wire. Telephone bells were ringing all night and all day, followed by the tragically monotonous question, " Can you tell me, please, if the name of is on the list of saved?" Sympathetic clerks hastened to reply in nearly every case, " His name is not on the list," and there was a lump in the throat of those who heard what was said and felt the pathos of " the other end of the telephone.» On the desks were prepaid telegraph forms, already filled in, which the officials had undertaken to dispatch directly the required name was received as that of a survivor. The grief of the people is the more poignant because it is almost tearless. One German gentleman said he had waited at the offices for news without sleep since the first messages of the disaster came. He had three sisters on board the Titanic when she sailed. Another watcher said he had four sisters and three brothers on the ship. There was as yet no news of them in either case. There were touching scenes, too, in other places besides the offices of the line. One such incident was observed at Sutton. A lady in a motor-car spied a paper-boy with a news bill on which was printed, " Names of the Saved." She stepped eagerly from her car, and excited hands snatched a paper from the boy. A hurried glance down the list, and thenshe fainted. The name she sought was missing. She was taken to a hotel close by. |
SOUTHAMPTON, April 17.The gloom which settled over Southampton when confirmation of the Titanic's loss was received is deepening, and to-night the wives and other relatives of the crew still keep anxious vigil at the White Star offices.WIDOWED SOUTHAMPTON. (From our own correspondant) Here, where are the homes of most of the crew, their kinsfolk have hoped and watched all day for news of survivors, news of fathers, husbands, brothers, sons. They have waited silently, anxiously, and for most the tidings came not. To-night many of them have been waiting almost continuously for twenty-four cours for tidings of the breadwinners of many humble homes. The suspense is agonising, and heartrending scenes have been common. "Will the list never come?" one poor woman exclaimed, as her fainting form was borne away. Nothing approaching this appalling blow has ever fallen upon the port, though disasters to the local seafaring community have been by no means rare, and memories of the Stella and Hilda disasters are still recalled.
WIDOWS IN EVERY STREET.
Here there are widows in nearly every street in certain parts, and already two deaths ot bereaved people have taken place.One case was recorded yesterday, another almost as pathetic comes to light to-day. A wile recently confined has died since the news was broken to her, and the child has died also. In two neighbouring streets in the Shirley district are two young widows, married only a few weeks since, the voyage in one case being the unfortunate husband's first. In yet another street there are three widowed women living side by side. The company's officials granted all possible information to the bereaved inquirers, the names of he saved being posted on a notice board as soon as received. There were pathetic scenes outside the offices as the wives in suspense learnt the worst. Hopeless misery has cast its wing over the town, causing the wholesale cancellation of social engagements and public meetings. |
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