The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-04-06
The Crime of the Atlantic Wreck.


seeking revenge by the most desperate means?
The Crime of the Atlantic Wreck.
AS the full particulars of the wreck of the
White Star steamship are brought to light our
strongest opinions of the criminality of the
loss and all that led to it arc confirmed. Our
first opinion that to the inhuman rapacity of
those who direct the line the terrible catastro-
phe was due is sustained. We do not in this
exonerate Captain Williams in the slightest
degree. He actually lost the ship; but the
grasping of those who crowded the ship
with passengers while lessening her fuel
is in the highest degree culpable. We
whose hands yet lies the power to
send ships of the White Star line to sea so
parsimoniously supplied that the lives of
thousands will be imperiHed to save few
pitiful shekels for the Shyock owners. We
concluded in our first editorial on the ship
wreck that the provisions were doubtless sup
piled on as misery q scale as the coal, and
among the first of Captain Williams apologies
for turning his ships head to Halifax is that
on the 31st March, when only eleven days out,
'the chief steward also reported the stores
short; fresh provisions enough for the So
loon for two days and but salt for the seemge
for two days, when all bit bread and rice acould
be oaa." When only eight days out the coal
was reported short. On the 31st there were
but one hundred and twenty-seven tons left
with four hundred and sixty miles of heavng
sea between the Atlantic and Sandy Hook
What can be said of these things? Indignation
will not express in the faintest degree the feeling
that will rise in the community to denounce
such unparalleled avarice. Eleven days out, in
q season when a passage of from fourteen to
twenty days may be expected, and fuel and
provisions left for only two days We are hor-
rified when we think of the carelessness, neg
igence and incompetence that were combined
to bring about the disaster ON Meagher's Rock
but we are terrified to think that the parsi-
mony which directed the outfit of this vessel
may again endanger thousands Of lives. An
accident to the screw in mid-ocean might, in
the starvation that would ensue, have made
the Atlantic floating charnel house, whose
describe were she even able under sail
to weather the storm. The sudden swoop of
death as the ship lay heeling over in the freez-
ing waters off Cape Prospect We're better
hundred times than the death which would
come by degrees through hunger to the thou
sand passengers of the ship in mid-ocean. No
number of successful trips made under similar
- of
through such affrighting risks, would make
the possibility of such an accident whit the
less. 1t is q diabolical game with death,
.'where death must win sooner or later, and
we wish the public to be under no misappre-
hension as to those who play it and who profit
by it. When Captain Williams intro
duced the shortness of coal and the
paucity of provisions as reasons deter
mining him to run to Halifax he was, perhaps,
unconscious that he was fixing chain of
guilt about the necks of those who, with him.
self, were responsible FOR the miserably crimi-
nal shortcomings in the outfit of the over
crowded ship. The owners telegraph to their
agent here that the diversion to Halifax is
''incomprehensible' to them. Were they SO
blinded by the success of previous parsimony
that failure in any shape to win on the dread
full hazard was ''incomprehensible?" The
long, narrow ship beating her bows in against
the rocks will tell them that the laws of God
and man cannot be set at naught. They have
lost this time, and the execration of mankind
will tell them how much.
From this criminal meanness, the most des-
picable in long roll of such things, we can
turn for a moment to its awful effects.
Pity and compassion have wept all that
humanity can weep over the forsaken women
and abandoned little darlings left by strong
men to die amid the icy breakers. Sympathy
and charity are doing for the living all that
can now be done. Even here, however, ac-
cusation against the agents is heard. On the
chief actor in the tragedy all eyes are
turned. The world now knows that he was
out Of his reckoning. He had never been
on that iron-bound coast before. Except
the third officer neither Captain nor mates
had been in Halifax He took no soundings,
nor did he order any, ''because the night was
clear" He was on deck at twenty minutes
past twelve, and left orders to be awakened at
three. The ship was running at twelve knots
an hour towards destruction, and no lookout
seems to have been kept. Were all the watch
asleep9 Captain Williams says:-'From
the state of the weather when l came
on deck, think the white snow line of the
shore would be visible at distance of from
two to three miles" There can be no doubt
of this; but, says the chief officer, ''no
sort of warning was given" until the shock of
the impact on the rocks reused everybody to
the situation. The second officer persisted,
and he cannot answer here for his crime