WIFE OR CHILD?

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3576, 16 December 1926, Page 1

WIFE OR CHILD?

WHICH SHOULD HE HAVE SAVED? 11 both your wife and your sixyon r-old son were drowning and you could only save one of them, what would you do? This heartrending choice actually confronted a New .Jersey man, Mr. -Neil Johnson. He elected to save his son, and his wife perished. Others as vehemently assert that common decency and the unwritten family law commanded that he save his .wife. For the rest Mr. Johnson is still unable to convince himself why he made the desperate choice that he did. The circumstances may be told in a few words. Mr Johnson, accompaniei by three men friends, were out in a rowing boat on Silver Lake, New Jersey, shortly before sunset. Threatening clouds suddenly appeared in the sky, and Mr Johnson started to pull for the shore, when something happened —he does not know what. The boat capsized, and all six occupants were precipitated into the lake, the boat drifting rapidly away.. Mr Johnson discovered himself near his wife and son, and one of the three friends struggling in the water at some little distance, shouted to him: “Save one of them! We will try to reach the other!” The boy at that moment sank for the second time, and Mr Johnson quickly grasped him and stiuck out for the shore. The three friends, however, were unable to reach his wife before she disappeared.