University of Virginia Library

MORE THAN SEVENTY WIDOWS

More than seventy widows were in the weeping company. The only large family that was saved in its entirety was that of the Carters, of Philadelphia. Contrasting with this remarkable salvage of wealthy Pennsylvanians was the sleeping eleven-months-old baby of the Allisons, whose father, mother and sister went down to death after it and its nurse had been placed in a life-boat.

Millionaire and pauper, titled grandee and weeping immigrant, Ismay, the head of the White Star Company, and Jack Jones from the stoke hole were surrounded 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.