Admiral Chadwick urges the “preserving a life so valuable to the great organization to which Mr. Ismay belongs.” This bestows upon Mr. Ismay’s escape a kind of halo of self-sacrifice. No man is indispensable. There are surely brains enough and business capacity enough in the White Star company to run without him. The reports say that of the rescued women thirty-seven were widowed by the accident and the lack of boats. Their husbands were quite as indispensable to them as Mr. Ismay to the company. His duty to the ship’s company was clear and primary; that to the White Star company so secondary as to be at the moment inoperative. We should be careful not to pervert standards. Witness the talk that the result is due to the system. What is a system, except that which individuals have made it and keep it? Whatever thus weakens the sense of individual responsibility is harmful, and so likewise is all condonation of failure of the individual to meet his responsibility. CONCLUDING NOTE By Charles Vale COLONEL GRACIE died on the fourth of December, 1912. He had been in feeble health all through the summer, but had no definite physical complaint. He felt ill and weak, and ascribed his condition to the exposure and strain through which he went in the _Titanic_ disaster. Mrs. Gracie and his daughter were with him up to the end, which he knew was coming, for the day before he died he had the minister of the Church of the Incarnation brought to his bedside, and Holy Communion was administered. On the next day he was unconscious for twelve hours; but just before he died he became conscious for about ten minutes, recognizing everyone and bidding them good-bye. The funeral service was held at Calvary Church, where he was married, and a large number of the members of the Seventh Regiment, to which he belonged, were present. The church was beautifully decorated. Mrs. Astor was there, and many other _Titanic_ survivors, several of whom Colonel Gracie had helped into the boats at the time of the disaster. The interment took place at the Gracie plot at Woodlawn. * * * * * And so his book finishes here. He had intended to write a final chapter, reviewing the tragedy of the _Titanic_ in retrospect, and in the light of all the later information that he had gathered; drawing the lessons that seemed most necessary in the present, and most serviceable for the future; and rounding out his story with the finishing touches. But the actual Finis must be written by another hand. Well, it does not greatly matter. The real work has been completed, in its entirety. The picture has been drawn, the details faithfully gathered together and arranged in their due order. The rest was merely an affair of reflection and comment; and of such looking backward there has been already sufficient. * * * * *