THE WRECK OF THE LUSITANIA.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 9 August 1901, Page 4

THE WRECK OF THE LUSITANIA.

Wo were informed by cable of the wreck of the Atlantic liner Lusitania, bound from Liverpool to Montreal, with five hundred passengers on board, a short distance north of Cape Kace, Newfoundland, on 26 th June. According to narratives given by the passengers they had a terrible experience. They first became aware of the disaster through the rasping of the ship over the rock?, hurling them from their berths, many of them sustaining bruises. They hurried on deck in their night clothes, and even some of the male passengers lost control of themselves. Others more coolheaded, retained their calm, and assisted the crow in getting out the boats. One of iha boats were upset, and) its occupants immersed. The women and children when brought ashore were almost naked, and drenched with the spray. Thev hid to ba literally pulled up to the oliffa by the coast people. Some of the boats were demolished in the surf, their half-drowned occupants clinging on to the rocks, shivering and cold, until they were rescued. The passengers, after waicing for hours for the dawn on the bare hill top, wet through, and chilled to the bone, tramped for miles to the houses of soma fishermen, where they were sheltered. All night long there was a heavy sea, and it rained furiously. Details of the wreck from another source show that there was a panic among the passengers, who were aroused in their berths by ths shock, and ran oa deck half clothed. There wore wild shouts of "Lower the lifeboats," and a body of French steerage passengers made a rush for one of the boats. The officers did their best to keep order and restore confidence, but the Frenchmen threatened them with their knives, and the officers were compelled to draw their revolvers in self-defence. Several excited foreigners scrambled into one of the boats, heed'essly trampling on the women and children in their path. A few moments later however, they were ignominiously routed out by the crew with, handspikes.