PERICLES INQUIRY.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 736, 8 April 1910, Page 7

PERICLES INQUIRY.

_» ON USUAL COURSE. ALLEGED NEGLECT OF CERTAIN PASSENGERS.. By Telegraph—Press ABsooiation-Oopjrrleht ■ (Rec. April 8, 1 a.m.) Perth, April 7. The Admiralty Court has commenced an inquiry into tho wreck' of the Aberdeen liner Pericles, 11,000 tons, which sank after striking what is believed to be an uncharted rock. Counsel appeared for Captain Simpson, also for 31 passengers, who had made charges against tho officers of neglecting tliird-class passengers. Captain Simpson, in his evidence, stated that angles wore taken at every point along the shore. He had a new standard compass, and it had very little deviation. The ship was drawing 28ft., 'and when sho struck was travelling at tho rate of 13 knots an hour. It took twelve minutes to stop her after sho struck, and she travelled a mile to a mile and a half; He was on tho usual fine-weather course at, tho time of the disaster.'' The assistant-lighthouse keeper at Cape Leeuwin deposed that tho Pericles was' eight miles away when he'first noticed that sho appeared to be lying there,'flying two flags', but she was too far off for him. to make out their meaning. . She afterwards drifted ;in four miles. Her course was. just like other vessels coming in the same direction, and was not unusually close to the shore. She was outsido the dangerous ran. . i

' Tho third officer of the Pericles deposed that the usual course, six. or seven miles off Cape Leeuwin, was kept,