Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-05-11
THE GRAVEYARD OF
THE SEVEN SEAS
King Neptune's Appalling Toll of
Human Lives-Famous Ocean Dis
asters-Ships That Sailed Into
Eternal Silence.
By EDGAR MELs

! 1Vl phized the ocean in words of fluent
music He bewaied mans helplessness
"Ten thousand fleets sail over thee in vain
Mans control stops with the Shore" he
wrote. And the terrible disaster in st
Georges Channel in which the mighty Lust
! tania went to the oceans depths bears him
! out.
We all recall the horrors Of the Titanic dis
aster Even the burning Of the General slo-
cum in the East River, New York. with Its
1000 victims. most OF them women and chill
dren, ls still fresh IN our memories. But there
are other tragedies OF the sea of the DINNER
past, about which time has woven the CLAM
our Of romance. What school child does not
remember the pathetic story of Theodosa
Burr who sailed from her home In the
Southland to join Aaron Burr, then In New
York? What became OF her-what her rate?
To this day the deepest mystery surrounds
her last hours. Was she captured by pi-
rates. as gossip of her day had It? Did the
vessel bearing her go down? No one knows.
Mysterious Disappearance
But there are other mysterious disappear
ances chronIcled in the annals of marine dis
astcrs. on March II, 1S41, the steamship
President, the LusItana of her day, steamed
from New York for Liverpool with 1856 pas
sengers aboard. The days passed, and no
word was received from or of her There
were no cables and wireless in those days,
and anxiety grew by leaps and bounds. All
kinds Of rumors were rife-she had been
seen-she was safe-but to this day the only
clue to her fate was n note contained In
bottle. The note, written by Tyrone Power,
an actor mot the comedian of the present
era). said that the ship was sinking.
Thirteen years later, on March 1, the City
of Glasgow left the Mersey, bound for Phila-
depha with iii saloon passengers 293 steer
age passengers and a crew of rs, total Of
$50. The days grew into weeks, and April
arrived but the steamship was not reported.
On May 10 the owners received message at
Liverpool from London that ship Of her de-
scrption had been sighted by an arriving
vessel some time previously, making for the
Azores and apparently crippled Hope
vved again, until exhaustive inquiry dis
closed that this was another hoax and that
all concerned in her safety had been sub
Jected to cruel and needless suspense.
Only two years later. on January %. 1856,
the Collins liner Pacific left Liverpool for
New York with PAS persons on board She
was one of the crack flyers of her day, built
for the express purpose of capturing the rec
ord of the heetest ocean greyhound, for the
era of transatlantic racing was then dawn
ing. What luckless fate befell this splendid
vessel, the finest triumph of shipbuildng to
that date can only be conjectured Whether
storm, ice, derelict or internal explosion
wrought her ruin is untold The catastrophe
to her Consort, the Arctic, eighteen months
previously. which sank from collision with a
collier off Cape Race and carried down with
her 332 persons. cannot strictly be Classed
among mysterious wrecks, but the two
tragedies were the prime cause of putting
the Collins Line out of business
The following years brought a dozen more
mysteries of the deep. 1t was not until 1870
that the world was again aroused to the hor-
ror of wholesale deaths. The Inman liner
City Of Boston sailed from the city bearing
her name to Halifax, arriving there three
days later and sailing again on January 2s
One hundred and ninety one human beings
vanished with the ship,
Women and Children First
Still disappearances are not tho only form
of disaster to ships But in most instances
the rule-"women and children tirst"-is OBJ
served. On February 26, 1852, in Algoa
Bay. Cape Colony South Africa the troop
ship Birkenhead, carrying British soldiers
and their families, struck a reef and went
all the women and children were saved From
this originated the "Birkenhead drill"
through which the weaker are sent to safety
first.
The largest loss of life recorded in any
modern sea disaster was one on December
2l, 1911, when the British ships ST. George,
Defense and Hero were stranded during a
hurricane near Jutland and 1000 lost their
lives. Next in number was the Titanic, with
1885; the Sultana, with 100; General Slocum
and the Japanese steamship Klckemaru,
with 1000 each; Princess Alice sunk in col
lision In the River Thames. 700; Norge,
stranded, with 700; another steamship of
the same name foundered in midocean with
about as many.
The Sultana horror was one of the great
est in inland shipping history. II was OBJ
scured by the assassination of President Lin
coin and the public, aside from those imme-
diately interested paid little attention to the
in which 100 lost their lives.
In all times, in all climes, the vast depths
of the sea claim their moiety of humanity.
The toll must be paid so long as men go
down TO the sea. And human ingenuity
capable of the impossible finds that its con-
troll OF the ocean stops with the shore
Neptune is still king!
THE PLEDGE
From the New York Sun.