Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-06-29
THE SLOCUM HORROR
Directors, Captain, Mate and
 Inspector Guilty.
HELD FOR CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE
Jury Ts of the opinion That the sya- tenn of Inspection Is Improper and Inaufncient and Does Not
 Guard Life as It Should.

tenn of Inspection Is Improper
 and Insufncient and Does Not
 Guard Life as It Should.
 NEW YORK, June 29-After a full investigation the coroner's jury last night found atverdict q holding every person directly concerned in the Gem eraI Slocum horror criminally responsi- ble for the loss of the lives of the ex- cursionists who perished in the disas- ter
 Those directly blamed by the jury were: Frank A. Barnaby, president of the Knickerbocke Steamboat compa- ny; J. k. Atkinson, secretary of the company; all of the directors, Captain William H. Van Schaick, Mate Edward Flanagan and Henry Lundberg, as sistant United States steamboat in- spector, who approved the fire fighting apparatus of the boat before she was placed in commission in May. Flanagan was denounced for cow ardice and for failure to perform his duty. Lundberg was held to have been incompetent, careless and indifferent. The jury found that the existing sys- tenn of steamboat inspection is very in sufficient and recommended radical change by the department of commerce and labor
 Mir Barnaby and MT. Atkinson were not on hand when the verdict against them was read, so were not arrested, but those who had remained in court. were placed under arrest upon the pre- liminary charge of manslaughter. They were Flanagan and Lundberg
 Captain Van Schaick, who is still in hospital suffering from severe wounds, remained a prisoner in his cot, but his status was changed from that of detained witness to that of a person charged with crime but still under the same police surveillance.
 w. H. Van Schaick, captain of the General -Slocum when it burned at the entrance of the sound, with the loss of more than a thousand lives, has testi- fled at the inquest held by Coroner Berry at New York. He was wheeled into court in an invalid's chair, and his examination had to be interrupted to allow him to recuperate. Other wit nesses testified in the interval one of whom, the Slocun's candy counter clerk, contradicted the captain to the extent of saying that he. had never seen or taken part in fire drills on the Slocum. The captain said that he had held three on the boat this year, but ! when asked to say in what they con- sisted replied that he could not tell ex- actly
 Once under way Van Schaick an- swered most questions, sometimes aft CT temporfzing, but generally as the prosecutor wanted He said that only 25O new life preservers had been put on board the Slocum since 1891. and all that he recalled by way of repairs to them was that new straps were put on 300 last year. He told q whole lot of things that Federal Inspector Lund- berg of the steamboat bureau did not do. He said Lundberg, who refused l last week to testify at the Inquest on the ground that to do so might tend to I incriminate him, boarded the Siocum ! this spring and examined maybe ten, < maybe hundred ,'' of the Slocum's life { belts. He did not inspect the hose. Wan Schaick said, nor test the life < boats and life rafts. V When Van Schaick was told that the { district attorney had asked all the < questions he wanted to, the captain { turned to the jury and said:
 1T want you gentlemen to under stand that did all in my power that could be done under the circumstances at the time of the accident. I could not turn the boat and beach her any sooner than I did. remained stand ing in front of the pilot house until we struck. Then I started to go down stairs.
 "A volcano of fire had broken out along the decks and was sweeping up the stairways. I could not get down the stairs. Some one yelled, Jump for your life, captainP and then jumped overheard. I struck in shallow water on the rocks and broke my knee. My clothes had been,on fire. l, was stun, ned.
 He said that be gave no orders to { the crew after he knew of the fire.
 The witness said he had been on the General Slocum since the boat was built in 1891, that he was fifty three years old, that he had been a boatmar for forty years and master of vessels