The Portland daily press., 1900-07-04
Charges Against Tug
Boat Captains.
Specific Statement Made By
German Officers.

New York, July 3.-From the swirling
waters of North river, in among the
black-topped piles, of the burnt piers,
and from the iron coffin hulks of the
three fire-devastated ocean liners, there
had been recovered, up to ten o'clock to-
night the remains of 102 human beings,
all of whom met death in awful form in
Saturdays condagration The list is
growing hour by hour and tomorrow
morning when the tide is at its lowest, it
is believed that a great many more
bodies viii be recovered. The dead to-
night are distributed among the morgues
IN Hoboken, Jersey City, New York and
on the steamship Saale there are three
bodies which have not yet been removed.
In O'Donnel's undertaking establish
ment there are So bodies, in Hoffman's,
%; in Jersey City and in New York 6.
The other ten of the 10 which had been
taken to the morgue up to tonight have
been removed for burial
Aside from this list Of bodies which
have positively or partly been identified,
a number of people were seen to have
perished by friends or by fellow officers
on the ship. All day long today, the
work CT searching the ruins was kept up.
The officials of the North German Lloyd
line did everything they could to straigh-
ten out matters and bring things into
some sort of tangible shape. Their
main efforts were directed to taking
care of the survivors and to securing an
accurate list Of the missing. They looked
after the transportation TO Germany of
the survivors who are in condition to go,
gave them clothing and fed them. Thou
sands Of people lined up along River
street in Hoboken today watching the
recovery of the dead. Undertakers'
wagons stood In front of the Valencia
boat club house and wooden cofIins lay
on the float IN the water ready to receive
the dead as the bodies were towed in
Far out in the stream were numerous
small rowboats dragging their graphing
hooks behind them as they searched for
bodies among the sub merged debris. To
the people on the shore, the row boats
appeared to be but little specks far out
beyond the line of burnt and blackened
piles that only supported the great docks.
Many persons on the shore had marine,
field and opera glasses and with these
kept a bearing ON the small boats in
search Of the grueson1e corpses. AS each
boat would near the shore, the efforts
of the oarsmen and the sluggish move
ment Of the little craft showed VIII ether
or not there was a body in tow behind.
Coming into palmer view the body
could be seen bobbing up and down in
the water, often showing burned, charred
and horribly mangled face. The bodies
were drawn to the Valencia boat club
float, lifted on to it and from there car
ried to the dead wagons.
Official action was today started on the
charges of cruelty against tug boat cap
tains, and also on the charges that they
refused to rescue persons unless money
was paid to them. Fritz Ferdinand
Heinrich Krouse, the third officer of the
Phoenicia of the Hamburg American
line, today went before Recorder Stanton
in Hoboken and made the following
afiidavit:
II am the third officer of the Ham
burg American line Phoenicia, now at
the Hamburg American dock, Hoboken.
On Saturday, June 80, 1900, at O'Clock,
left the Phoenicia and went out to the
end of dock No. 2. I went to one of our
life boats which was alongside the burn
ing steamship Saale of the North Ger
man Lloyd line.
ST saw tug boat at the end of the
pier. asked the captain to put me on
board the life boat spoken of. He said
Yes, all right. can do it. went
on the tug boat called Dandy and was
going up to the pilot house and was
showing the pilot where wanted to go.
We put away from The dock and had
covered about half the distance. The
captain OF the tugboat then said: Have
you any money to pay me?
II answered Its no use for me to car
ry money while on board the ship. I
have none IN my pocket. only carry
money when I go on ashore.
sThescaptain of the Dandy who was in
the pilot house at the wheel, then said: