Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters (Paperback)

Excerpt: ...instantly. Some would gladly have escaped observation. Every man among the survivors acted as though it were first necessary to explain how he came to be in a life-boat. Some of the stories smacked of Munchausen. Others were as plain and unvarnished as a pike staff. Those that were most sincere and trustworthy had to be fairly pulled from those who gave their sad testimony. Far into the night the recitals were made. They were told in the rooms of hotels, in the wards of hospitals and upon trains that sped toward saddened homes. It was a symposium of horror and heroism, the like of which has not been known in the civilized world since man established his dominion over the sea. STEERAGE PASSENGERS The two hundred and more steerage passengers did not leave the ship until 11 o'clock. They were in a sad condition. The women were without wraps and the few men there were wore very little clothing. A poor Syrian woman who said she was Mrs. Habush, bound for Youngstown, Ohio, carried in her arms a six-year-old baby girl. This woman had lost her husband and three brothers. "I lost four of my men folks," she cried. TWO LITTLE BOYS Among the survivors who elicited a large measure of sympathy were two little French boys who were dropped, almost naked, from the deck of the sinking Titanic into a life-boat. From what place in France did they come and to what place in the New World were they bound? There was not one iota of information to be had as to the identity of the waifs of the deep, the orphans of the Titanic. The two baby boys, two and four years old, respectively, were in charge of Miss Margaret Hays, who is a fluent speaker of French, and she had tried vainly to get from the lisping lips of the two little ones some information that would lead to the finding of their relatives. Miss Hays, also a survivor of the Titanic, took charge of the almost naked waifs on the Carpathia. She became warmly attached to the two boys, who unconcernedly played about, not...