The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1914-04-09
FOR rs men
ABOUT ABANDONED
SEALING STEAMER SOUTHERN
CROSS is TO BE POSTED
AS LOST.
STORY OF OTHER TRAGEDY
Survivors of Newfoundland Tell OF
Death of Comrades-ldentifi-
cation Scenes Are
Pitiful.

st. Johns. N. F., April Hope for
the safety of the sealing steamer
Southern Cross, missing since last
Tuesdays storm, has been practically
abandoned, and the vessel is to be of
ficially posted as lost with her crew
of 173 men.
Newfoundland Survivors Talk.
The handful of survivors of the
Newfoundland have just told their
stories of the disaster which cost the
lives of II of their comrades, and
they hold out no hope that the South
ern Cross might have w~eathered the
gale.
The colony, plunged into mourning
by the greatest tragedy in its history,
has waited in vain, hoping against
hope that the wireless search of the
sea might bring some word from the
missing vessel whose loss would de-
prive whole settlements of their bread
winners and render more than 1000
women and children dependent upon
charity.
First Hopes Fade.
First hopes, based on the stoutness
of the ship, faded when survivors Of
the Newfoundland told of the two
days blizzard and the condition in
which it caught the Southern Cross.
Captain Martin said he parted COM
pany from her a week ago Thursday,
when the Southern Cross turned
homeward with 1900 seals. She was
so deeply laden that all her provisions
and part of her bunker coal were
stored on deck so that every available
space below could be filed with her
catch.
Captain Bartlett Of the Terra Nova
said the last he saw of the Southern
Cross was a week ago Friday, when
she was w%allowing slowly down the
coast. Other ships of the feet sight
ed the steamer driving before the
gale last Tuesday morning. She has
not been reported since and the skip
pers of the feet that came through
that gale and the storm of equal Sc
verify later in the week, say every
chance was against a vessel so deep
ly laden.
Churches Remember Dead.
In every church Sunday the disas-
ter which overlook the Newfound-
lands men on the ice was the theme
of the sermon.
Messages of sympathy from the king
and from the Canadian premier we're
read and were gratefully received.
BY noon all but five of the 60 bod
les of the Newfoundland's hunters,
brought in Saturday by the Bellaven-
ture, had been identified. These we're
shipped on a special train for Bona
Vista, where most of the victims lived.
Attendants at the Greenfell insti-
tute, which was turned into morgue,
said that the scene accompanying the
Identification of the bodies were al
most beyond endurance.
One woman found two bodies clasp
ed so tightly in death they could not
be separated. They were her hus-
band and son. The lad was wrapped
in his fathers arms, as IL the man
had been trying to SHIELD him from the
pitiless cold.
Pitifui Scenes Enacted.
b hand OF another dead man was
missing. One of the survivors who
had lain helpless near the body for
nearly As hours, said that his comrade,
unable TO stand the agony OF frost.
bite, had sliced off the hand with his
seaman's knife.
a gray-haired mother, supported by
her two daughters, passed down the
long rows looking for her sons, Atten.
ton was suddenly drawn 10 them
when the woman fell 10 the floor ia
a faint. They had found not only ths
four ons and brothers, but two GUS
lns, among the dead.
OF the 80 survivors In the hospital,
mons is expected 10 die, but the ma
!0ffty viii never be III for active ser.
vice again Three lost both hands
and both feet, Five lost both feet.
Eight others lost a foot and IL will
lose a hand or fingers. The otherf
will bear scars for life.