The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1911-08-25
THE SHIP CAPTAIN
His Life Pays the Penalty if His
Vessel Be Wrecked.
SAD TRAGEDIES OF THE SEA.
Brave and SkiIlfuI Mariners Who Went
to Death With Heroic Calmness
When Disaster Overwhelmed the
Craft Committed TO Their Care.

| For this is the law without excuse
| For all Of the lords Of the sea
| That each must hold his ship from harm.
Whatever the odds may be.
There are many tragedies OF the sea
that the world knows very little about,
or, knowing, very soon fOrgets. These
are the tragedies of the men whose
lives have been spent in the hard and
cxactlng service which the sea de
mands, whose long years Of toll and
zeal and skill have brought the high
responsibilities Of command and whose
careers have been cut short by the
fault Of an hour-yea, even by the eI-
ror Of minute.
The old rubrlc thAt those who never
make mistakes have had few oppor-
tunitlcs for making them does not ap-
ply here There Is never voyage that
does not have its possibility OF error,
and in many of them arise the sudden
emergencies which bring the acid test
of presence of mind, cool judgment,
expert scamanship and skill. Let these
| qualities fail the master mariner In his
/ time OF need, and no matter what
might have been the stress OF body OF
brain. or OF both, his professional ca
rccr Is mt an end, if the lapse involves
disaster to his ship.
There is that veteran mariner Car
tain Frederick Watkins. He 1t was
who commanded the City OF Paris
when the old Inman liner came stag
gering to port with the Atlantic waves
smashing about her hold and surging
against her bulkhcads the result of a
fog shroudcd impact with an iceberg
The liner was thronged with passen
gers The unforeseen danger came neal
to sending her and her thousand souls
to the bottom. but the energy, re
sourccfulncss and skin of her com
mandcr brought her safe to port-a
deed 10 be long remembered,
IT was remembered up to few
years ago. when a slight miscalcula-
ton on the part of Captain Watkins
sent his vessel upon the Mnnacle rocks,
on the Cornish COAST. Now you may
search all OF the obscure places OF the
earth and you may not locate him.
There was the prinZessin Victoria
Iuise of the Hamburg American line,
which drove hard upon the coral beach
at Port Royal, in the island of ia
mnlca. The vessel was thronged with
| tourists, making n jaunt to the West
| Indies. Fortunately the sea was calm,
and there was no difficulty In getting
passengers ashore When the last had
tnt tuont
to his stateroom and put bullet
through his brain.
The pltiuble part OF II all was that
he had no need to. 1t was not the
brain he shattered that was ut fault,
but the Kingston earthquake, which
had destroyed the lighthouse.
Captain Griffith of the Mohegan
stood on the bridge of his fast sinking
ship until the waters engulfed him.
Dcloncle of the French liner Bour-
gogne. sunk In mid Atlantic by col
lision with the British steamship Gro
| mnrtyshire, was last seen on the
bridge with hand on whistle cord, as
his vessel took the long dive. Won
| GoesSCl of the Elbc went down with
his ship, standing with folded arms
upon the bridge ns the vessel slowly
sank
one of the saddest tragedies of the
sea was the wreck OF the British
steamship Waicarapa. which went
ashore on Great Barrier island while
ON voyage from sydney to New Zea
| land AS the vessel neared the en-
trance to the harbor of Auckland Il
thick fog shut in. Captain Mcintosh.
who commanded her, had been many
years In the service of the line and
was rcputed to be very careful and
cropping her way through the mist 1t
was noted that he was exceedingly
nervous and depressed
When night came the fog was 50
thick that the lookoutS could not see
half ships length ahead A few min
utes past midnight there was n sud
den crash which laid the steamship
almost ON her beam ends. disabling all
of the boats on the cureered side. Cap
tain Mcintosh was on the bridge at
the time. \ great wound which Ind
been torn in the vessels side showed
the extent Of the disaster AS soon
as he realized that his ship must be-
come II total loss the captain strobe
to the end of the bridge and. exclaim
ing This Is the last watch" plunged
overheard 70 his death. Walter Scott
Meriwether In Munsey's Magazine.