The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-06-16
TITANIC VICTIMS AND THEIR RESCUE McGrath States They Could Have Been Saved
 on Ice

Iondon. June 15.-(Special.) )-"fhere IS widespread regret among the hardy fish erfolk of Newfoundland that there was nobody aboard the Titanic to suggest 'he method of saving the whole 2oo people on board This could have been done py simply utilizing the icehoes in the Vlclni'y as gigantic rafts, to which the passeh- gers and crew might have been trans ferred," writes the Hon. P. T. MeGrath' member of the legislative council or Newfoundland in the weekly Canada
 Ut seems incredible" he proceeds, that in all the immense multitude of people aboard the liner nobody thought of this simple solution It is one that would have immediately commended itself to Newfoundlander, and 1t is one that mas already won historical recognition through the most amazing escape in the whole annals of authenic adventure.
 I refer to the famous leefioe journey of the survivors of the Arctic steamer Polaris. who, in April 1873. were picked were picked up by the Newfoundland steamer. Tigress on an icefioe on the Grand Banks, after having drifted some 600 miles on this precarious footho.d' theil absolutely unlques voyage having occupied 193 days.
 "The ship had been crushed in the ice in North Greenland waters the preVious November, and, as is the inyariable prac- tice in these regions, they abandoned the ice-gored hull and took to the Hoes in order to reach the land. but a storm coming up before they had established themselves 1t was driven southward, and for six months it was their floating home | until rescue reached them on the Grand | Banks.
 This, however though the most remark able case of it's kind, is by no means the only case of shipwrecked people escaping death by taking refuge on an iceberg. l Whenever a Newfoundland sealing steamer is crushed by the pack--as hap pens to one or other of the flotilla al- raost every spring-the crew at once l betake themselves to the nearest Hoes with their clothing, provisions, boats and other impediments, and there remain until some others of the fleet come upon them and take them aboard. They are l not dismayed by the prospect of day l O., a weeks detention.
 Fishing crews making their way 10 Labrador in the early summer resort to the same expedient when their ships are crushed, and there are numerous cases on record where these people-men, women and children-have been adrift for several days before being picked up. Scores of such tales could be told, where cod fishers and seal hunters have es- capped from peril by this simple expedient Those aboard the Titanic might just as easily have done the same
 Any number of fragments were avail able to (which the first boatloads could have been transferred. while the boats made a second and third trip to the ship and brought off the remainder of the peo- ple. The women and children from Newfoundland vessels obliged to leave their beds in the darkness of night have survived experiences of this kind for from three to seven days, and therefore it is unlikely that any great number of those on the Titanic, however delieately nurtured or however poorly equipped for this enforced Imprisonment on an ice islet would have suffered any i'll effects"