Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1899-06-18
.ONE-MAN NAVIGATION' CAUSED THE LO
(From a Stair Correspondent of the


Register.)
LONDON, June S.-When the mag
uificent liner Paris crashed on the
rocks almost on top of the Inflated Mo-
hogan, and by the merest chance miss
ed sending hundreds of men and wo-
men to their death, great black mys-
terry deepened, and added to the un-
easiness of all who go down to the
sea in ships. What devil OF the sea
was it that turned these and number
of other crowded passenger ships far
out of their proper courses, and had
sent them headlong on the rocks with
no apparent reason or excuse for it?
If the Mohegan and the Paris, both
in excellent condition, and each COM
manded by the most experienced and
trusted captain of its respective line,
could turn out of one of the most
beaten tracks of transatlantic travel
and ram their noses upon well known
fair weather and smooth sea, then
who, indeed is safe?
To-day tested theory on lot of
seasoned old captains gathered at the
London Shipmasters' Society in
Frenchurch street. They treated it at
first with some doubt, and finally in
dorsed it without qualification. Then
it was tried at Trinity House, the his
toric home of the lighthouse corpora
ton. It was wholly approved there.
Then it was taken to high official of
the Board of Trade, which in England
is a government body whose president
is a member of the Cabinet. The Off
cial said the theory was sound, sensi-
bile and practical.
So here it is, condensed in the form
of the hypothetical question in which
it was put to all these experts: Would
Mohegan, and all the others like them,
have wandered SO strangely out of
their courses and gone upon the rocks
If the course had been shaped by two
officers, arriving at the decision as to
the proper direction for the ship indie
pendently of each other, instead of by
one officer, usually the captain whose
decision no one is called upon to ques-
tion or to corroborate?
The idea is not new. "One-man nav
igation" used to be one of the usual
features in the sailors long list of
grievances, but it was not insisted upon
as of prime Importance, and since the
recent disasters to which it applies it
strangely has been neglected.
At the risk of seeming bumptious. it
might be said that none of the experts
with whom the matter was discussed
yesterday appeared to have considered
it much as an explanation of these
tragedies at sea, and as preventive
for future ones. But in each case, upon
further discussion of the matter, it was
agreed that if so simple device had
been adopted probably neither the Mo-
hogan nor the Paris would have gone
on the Manacles, and that nearly 100
of the Mohegan's passengers and crew
might have been alive to-day. Like
wise that the Stella would not have
gone upon the Casquets with such
frightful loss of life few weeks ago,
and that hundreds of other lives would
have been saved in times past by the
adoption of SO simple a precaution.
Likewise, and yet more important,
that, in all human probability, an APP
palling number of lives will be sacri-
feed in the future, and millions of dol
lars worth of property, if the remedy
is not applied.
Any one who has undertaken to get
an extended interview with an old and
experienced steamship captain knows