TRAGEDY ON RAPIDS AT NIAGARA.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1832, 19 August 1913, Page 6

TRAGEDY ON RAPIDS AT NIAGARA.

CROWD SEES BOYS DRAWN INTO THE WHIRLPOOL. The Whirlpool Rapids at 'Niagara took two more lives late on the afternoon of June 23, when Donald Rosco, aged nine, and Hubert Moore, aged eleven, drifted into them in a boat in which they had been playing: near the shore. Elliott Thompson, a boy of 12, was also in the boat, but as lie realised that to remain in the craft meant death in the rapids, he bade his little friends, who oonld not swim, good-bye, leaped out, and succeeded in reaching the shore. In the meantime the boat with the terrified occupants ivas being drawn swiftly into the danger zone, where the waters dash against hidden rocks, and eddies with cross-eddies abound.

Hundreds of holiday-makers on the American and Canadian' banks watched tiie tragedy as it unfolded before their eyes, but quite powerless to assist. Women spectators fainted as they sawthe frail craft whirling downstream on the crest of the boiling waters. The iittle boys themselves seemed to realise that they were jlcomed. First they clung to, each other in a tight embrace, but as the boat became agitated by the increasing momentum they separated, and each clung to a seat at the bottom. ' Near,,,the,.famous, whirlpool, a big wave caught, the boat, hurled it against the rocks, and sank it. A moment later the head of one boy was seen for a moment, but never aga'in. It is hardly likely that the bodies will be recovered. Rosoo's mother was so dangerously ill that tho news of her son's death was withheld from her. A few minutes after the tragedy a company of firemen arrived with ropes and ladders, but it was questionable whether they could have saved the boys, even if they had appeared earlier.