Sinking of the "Titanic" : $b most appalling ocean horror; with graphic descriptions of hundreds swept to eternity beneath the waves ...Mowbray, Jay Henry
History
Sinking of the "Titanic" : $b most appalling ocean horror; with graphic descriptions of hundreds swept to eternity beneath the waves ...
Mowbray, Jay Henry
Shipwrecks -- North Atlantic Ocean -- History -- 20th century; Titanic (Steamship)
“We in the first cabin used to see them and greatly admired them for
their beauty and sweet ways.
“When they were brought on board the Carpathia there were no New York
people except myself, who had not lost friends, I was the only one in a
position to befriend them, and I went to the committee of passengers we
had on board and offered to take them to my home.
“They gladly gave them to me because it meant that otherwise some
society would grab them and they might be separated and never reunited.
“I think that the boys are French, but perhaps Swiss, French or
Alsatian. I have tried them in Italian, German and English, but they
cannot understand. Louis, the oldest, is brown eyed, with curly brown
hair, very regular teeth and has no scar or mark on his body that would
identify him. Both are well bred. The little fellow is just like his
brother, but a year younger. Both have very long, curling lashes.
“When they got up this morning they asked first thing for a bath, and
at breakfast placed their napkins under their chins themselves. Louis
came aboard wrapped in a blanket that a sailor had given him. The other
boy had a little blue coat with white collar. Louis’s French is not a
patois and he has a very large vocabulary.
“I shall keep them till they are identified and make every effort to
find out who they are. Any one who can help me will win my thanks and
the thanks doubtless of some poor, stricken relatives. It seems almost
impossible that these boys can fail to be identified in this day and
generation.”
CHAPTER XIII.
LIFEBOATS BUNGLINGLY HANDLED.
Widow of College Founder Scores Management for Lack of Drill--First
Thought Damage was Slight--Aid May Have Been Near--No Oil in Life
Lamps--Hudson, N. Y., Woman’s Pathetic Recital--A. A. Dick, of New
York, Talks.
The urgent need of lifeboat drills on the trans-Atlantic liners was
touched upon by Mrs. William R. Bucknell, widow of the founder of
Bucknell University, and herself one of the survivors of the disaster,
in the course of a graphic account of the wreck of the Titanic given by
her at the home of her son-in-law, Samuel P. Wetherill, Jr., at 23d and
Spruce sts., Philadelphia.
Mrs. Bucknell said that not only were the passengers on the Titanic
absolutely unfamiliar with the life saving equipment of the vessel, but
that the equipment was inadequate and even faulty.
The lifeboats were bunglingly fastened to their davits, she said, and
many of the collapsibles were too stiff to open and thus useless for
service.
To her the greatest crime was the “unpreparedness” of the lifeboat
equipment. Mrs. Bucknell declared one of the boats was launched
with the plug out of the bottom, and afterwards sank, the occupants
fortunately being rescued by the Titanic’s fifth officer.
The lifeboat in which she was placed by Captain Smith, she declared,
was manned only by a steward and three ordinary seamen. And none of the
men, she declared, knew how to row.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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