AWFUL DISASTER

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2523, 26 July 1915, Page 6

AWFUL DISASTER

CROWDED PICNIC STEAMER TURNS TURTLE CHICAGO IN MOURNING APPALLING DEATH ROLL By Telegraph—Tress AE6oclation-oopyri&ht ■ . (Rec. July 24, 3.30 p.m.) . Chicago, July 24. Tho Chicago Electric Company's employees chartered the steamer Eastland for a day's picnicking, and two thousand live hundred persons crowded on board. While the vessel. was moored at the wharf tho weight of humanity caused a list, and many of the picnickers fell or rolled to the wrong side of tho vessel, which heeled over, broke her hawsers, and floated into tho middle of the rivor on her side, submerged, amidst scenes of panic. Scores were drowned in the cabins, while others leaped into the river. A steamer put out boats and rescucd hundreds,' while policemen in launches picked up many. Scores clambered up tho side while the Eastland was floating slowly down the river, and these were all saved. It is believed that seven hundred bodies are still on board in the flooded cabins. Life-savers are cutting through the ship's sides,-hoping to reach any wlio. may have survived. One policeman in a boat rescued fifty women and children. Three hundred bodies have been recovered. The police arrested all the officials of the steamship company, and tho crowd threatened to lynch them on route to the police station. There were many remarkable escapes. One man, unable to swim, was caught by his coat on a nail, which held him Up. Firemen chopped through the sides of the ship, but everyone ' was dead. The bodies were piled like bales of merchandise. There were pathetic scenes at tho morgue. Tho Customs people reported'that the vessel carried no more passengers than the regulation provided. The survivors describa the sinking as being like a lightning stroke. It was impossible to effect rescues. The divers are recovering many of the bodies. The city is in mourning. It is impossible to ascertain the number of dead, but these are known to exceed a thousand. • _ ; ' The mishap is believed to have been duft to a defect in, tho steamer's construction. ,