The San Francisco call., 1898-03-05
COURT IS AT
 4 STANDSTILL No Sessions Have Been Held During the Past
 Two Days.
Proceedings May Be Further Delayed by the Sickness
 of Stenographer.
Officers of the Maine Indignant Be- cause Survivors Are Ordered
 to Duty at Once.
Copyrighted. lsss by James Gordon Bennett

Copyrighted. 1898. by James Gordon Bennett
 KEY WEST, Fla, March 4.-The work of the Court of Inquiry is at . standstiI No sessions were held either yesterday or to-day. Judge Advocate Mark has spent the entire day ashore while Captain Sampson remained aboard his ship. the Iowa, until. o'clock this afternoon. He then came ashore and conferred with Admiral Si- card and Commander West, chief of the admirals staff, in the parlors of the Key West Hotel.
 Captain Chadwick and Lieutenant Commander Potter remained all day or the flagship New York.
 The taking of further testimony in Havana may be somewhat delayed by a curious complication. J. w. Hulz. the official stenographer, was permitted to start for Washington last evening Members of the Court of Inquiry thought he could be spared, as the small quantity of evidence remaining to be heard at Havana could easily be recorded by R. l.. Bissell, who is the courts official typewriter, and Is also an efficient stenographer
 Now that MT. Hulz has gone, MT
  as a result of vaccination, to which he had to submit last week In Havana at the hands of Dr. Brunner. The arm is swollen and so badly inf1amed that it may prevent rapid work on the type writer, and thus become really a seri- ous impeachment to the conclusion Of the work of the Court of Inquiry. Substi- tutes cannot readily be put in the places of these men. They are especially skill f11l Government ployes Of the highest class in their pro- fession. The courts two days Of idle ness and its obvious purpose to De Tn no hurry to get back to Havana have not unnaturally strengthened the be- lief already prevailing here that there is a clearly defined purpose to gain fur ther time before the conclusion of the report on the investigation.
 The first detachment of the Maine's survivors to go north will probably start tomorrow. It consists of Master at-Arms Ladd and four men from the stewards department. They are ex- pected to go direct to the receiving ship Vermont in the New York Navy Yard. From there they will probably be de- tailed soon to duty on other vessels. Master at-Arms Ladd, it Is said, will be transferred to the ram Katahdin. Or ders were received this afternoon de- tailing all the enlisted men for imme- diate duty on board the various ships now at or near Key West. The only exceptions are the five mentioned who go north, and four or Ave others whose injuries render them still unfit for duty No orders have yet 3een received for the Maine's officers, bat they are open ly indignant that their subordinates are ordered back to duty without opportu- nifty to go home. The order issued to- day affects about fifty men.
 After two postponements of its de- parture the Court Of Inquiry left for Havana this evening on the lighthouse tender Mangrove. It is believed by the best informed here that the court will complete it's labors in the Cuban capi- tai within ten days.
 Only three of the six days the court was here were devoted to the work of investigation. The inactivity of yeSter- day and to-day Is still unexplained, ex- cept by a semi official statement that Rear Admiral Sicard was awaiting in structions from Washington. The ses- sfons, it is generally understood, devel- oped no evidence by which the court could definitely determine the cause of the explosion.
 A naval officer in close touch with the members of the court said to-day:
 With one exception, the witnesses who testified here were Maine SurViV- ors. The evidence. though, in most cases taking longer to tell, can be summed up in the words of an enlisted man who. when Judge Advocate Mark asked him what he knew about the ex- plosion, replied: Sir, l was blown up. I was saved, and I'm here That was all he could swear to-"
 One important fact has been learned. however. It is that, although the mem bers nf the court may have their indi- vidual theories, they are by no means prepared as a body to render a decisive verdict. The official already quoted said: 'If the court has yet heard any testimony which would enable 1t to de- eide intelligently that the Maine was blown up from external causes, l am the most mistaken man in the world Before the coming Havana sessions are over, it may secure such evidence, and possibly find the blowing up was inten- tional It will learn from the divers the actual condition of the ship after the explosion, as 1t has already learned from the survivors most of the details of the ships condition before the ex- plosion With these bases thoroughly established, the court will hear more expert theoretical testimony, and then reach a verdict"
 This statement can be taken as more worthy of reliance than that of the Maine officer, who said the other day that he believed the court was bound on evidence already heard to find the cause of the explosion external. It's conservatism Is also at variance with the opinions of many other naval off, cers here, especially those of the young CT set, and directly contrary to the be- lief of most of the marine survivors that their ship was intentially blown up.
 Before sailing tonight Captain Sampson had a long consultation with Admiral Sicard-