That the number of lifeboats on the Titanic was insufficient to accommodate much more than one-third of the passengers, to say nothing of the crew. Most members of the crew say there were sixteen lifeboats and two collapsibles; none say there were more than twenty boats in all. The 700 who escaped filled most of the sixteen lifeboats and the one collapsible which got away, to the limit of their capacity. That the “women first” rule, in some cases, was applied to the extent of turning back men who were with their families, even though not enough women to fill the boats were at hand on that particular part of the deck. Some few boats were thus lowered without being completely filled, but most of these were soon filled with sailors and stewards, picked up out of the water, who helped man them. That the bulkhead system, though probably working in the manner intended, availed only to delay the ship’s sinking. The position and length of the ship’s wound (on the starboard quarter) admitted icy water, which caused the boilers to explode, and these explosions practically broke the ship in two. Had the ship struck the iceberg head-on, at whatever speed, and with whatever resultant shock, the bulkhead system of water-tight compartments would probably have saved the vessel. As one man expressed it, it was the “impossible” that happened when, with a shock unbelievably mild, the ship’s side was torn for a length which made the bulkhead system ineffective. The Titanic was 1799 miles from Queenstown and 1191 miles from New York, speeding for a maiden voyage record. The night was starlight, the sea glassy. Lights were out in most of the staterooms and only two or three congenial groups remained in the public rooms. In the crows’ nest, or lookout, and on the bridge, officers and members of the crew were at their places, awaiting relief at midnight from their two hours’ watch. At 11.45 came the sudden sound of two gongs, a warning of immediate danger. The crash against the iceberg, which had been sighted at only a quarter of a mile, came almost simultaneously with the clink of the levers operated by those on the bridge, which stopped the engine and closed the watertight doors. CAPTAIN SMITH ON THE BRIDGE. Captain Smith was on the bridge a moment later, giving orders for the summoning of all on board and for the putting on of life preservers and the lowering of the lifeboats. The first boats lowered contained more men passengers than the latter ones, as the men were on deck first, and not enough women were there to fill them. When, a moment later, the rush of frightened women and crying children to the deck began, enforcement of the women-first rule became rigid. Officers loading some of the boats drew revolvers, but in most cases the men, both passengers and crew, behaved in a way that called for no such restraint.