New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-06-26
TESTIMONY ENDED
in WRECK INQUIRY
Woman Passenger Tells of Her
Fight for Life in the
Water.

Quebec, June 25.-Counsel for the
owners of the Storstad at the Empress
of Ireland wreck investigation to-day
called Miss T. Townsend, of New Zea-
land, who was first cabin passenger
on the lost liner. His purpose was to
get from her confederation of the testi-
mony of the Storstad's officers regard
ing the signal whistles blown by the
Empress just before the collision. She
said that just before the crash she
heard three short blasts and two long
ones.
Miss Townsend was the first woman
to testify at this hearing. She said
that when the Empress keeled over she
walked along the steel side into the
water. A number of men with life
belts or surrounded her and one of
them, she said, pushed her away, but
when she rose to the surface again a
man named Burt gave her a suitcase to
LUCY her up and helped her get her
overcoat off. Then she swan fifty
yards until she was picked up by a
boat from the collier.
John Reid, a naval architect of Mont
real, to-day testified before the En-
press of Ireland commission that in
his opinion the rudder area Of the
Empress was not large enough to make
her a good steering ship. He added
that the collier had injured only one
watertight compartment and that any
water that got into the other parts of
the ship must have gone through
watertight doors and portfolios.
Asked by Lord Mersey to give his
theory of how the Storstad came to get
away from the Empress and what
caused the vessel to sink, Mr.. Reid
said:
"Storstad's nose was hooked into the
liners side; that locked, she swung
around to her stern, about 100 degrees,
end then got clear, the Empress moving
forward"
Survivors stories of how the water
rushed into their cabins through the
portfolios were submitted to substan-
tate the theory that these open aper-
lures contributed to the capsizing of
the vessel.
Recalled to the stand for counter
testimony on the rudder area of the
Empress, which John Reid had asserted
was not sufficient, Percy Hillhouse, of
a shipbuilding works, said that the
Aquitania had q rudder area of las
per cent of her total immersed area,
and the Campania one of 1905, COM
pared to the Empress's 1853. Rudders
above 2 per cent are found on battle
ships only, he added, in reply to Lord
Mersey's inquiry; on merchant vessels
the area dropped to as low as l per
cent. This closed the taking of testi-
mony.
George Gibson, of the National Sail
ors' and Firemen's Union of Great
Britain and Ireland, comprising 90 per
cent of those workers on British ships,
was called by Lord Mersey for a state
ment to the commission of inquiry OF
recommendation to the British Board
of Trade for new regulations called for
by the disaster. There had been only
nineteen able seamon to forty-two
boats on the Empress, Mr.. Gibson
stated, instead of at least two able
seamen TO a boat, proportionately de-
creasing the number of other seamen
carried. Only three of the Empress S
boats and one collapsible had been low
cred, he continued, though the lowering
could have been concentrated on the
starboard side.
Adjournment Of the inquiry was an
nounced till to-morroy afternoon, when
counsel for the owk ers of the two
steamers will begin |eir addresses.