Second Edition. Sinking of the Lusitania.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 7, 8 May 1915, Page 6

Second Edition. Sinking of the Lusitania.

LAT£ST r CABLE NEW&

MANY BOATS ON THE SCENE OF THE DISASTER.

[UNITBD PmII ASSOCIATION. J (Received, 1.55, p.m.) London, May 7. Twenty of the Lusitania's boats and sixteen other boats were on the scene after tbe. sinking. The passengers include Mr Frohman and'Mr Hugh Lane, who liad just offered .Mr John Singer Sargent £IO,OOO for the benefit of the Red Cross fund if he would accept a commission to paint his portrait. Sargent accepted. This is a record price. (John Singer Sargent, R.A., was horn in. Florence,, of American parents, being now 59 years of age, and was a pupil of Carolus Duran. He is •the. most, fashionable, and also the most daring of living portrait painters. ) (Charles Frohman, of the Duke of York's Theatre, London, is an American theatrical.- manager, who for a nuinber of years past has also been lessee of several London playhouses. In 1910 he owned the Repertory Theatre, which produced pieces by Meredith, Barrie, Shaw and others.) CUNARD,. STEAMSHIP COMPANY. It will be interesting to know, that the Cunard Steamship Company, Ltd., was originally established in 1878, |to take, oyei' the; business of the British andXtntjh American Royal. Mad Steam Packet Company and the British. ,ahd Foreign Steam: Navigation Company, wjjich companies maintained a service of fast steamships between Liverpool and New York. It now owns a fleet of twenty-three steamers, aggregating some 203,384. tons, the vessels.'including the,Campania and Lucania, having a speed oftwenty-two knots; the Etruria and Umbria, having a speed of twenty knots ;' the Caroina, 'and the turbine steamer Carmaiiia, both of about 20,000 tons ■ and the Lusitania (launched 1906) and Mauretania, turbine steamers of 31,937 and 31,550 tons gross respectively, and with a calculated speed of twenty-four to twentyfive knots. All the chief steamers are fitted with {he Marconi system of wireless telegraphy, and the Cunard Bulletin, published on board the ships, is the first real ocean newspaper. On July 30,' 1903, the company entered into ah agreement with the British Government, by which it undertook .to build two large steamers of high speed for-'the Atlantic trade, to remain a purely British undertaking, and to hold its fleet at the Government's disposal for twenty years. In return for this the Government agreed to lend a sum not exceeding £2,600,000 for the construction of two new vessels at an interest of 21 per cent, per annum, and also to subsidise the company to the extent of £150,000 per annum. This agreement was the outcome of negotiations arising from the formation by Mr Pierpont Morgan of an Atlantic .Shipping Combine. The company has a share' capital of £2,000,020. London offices : 93 Bishops, gate Street, EX'. In March 1911 the company still further added to its fleet by taking over three steamers from the Thomson Line, with the object of establishing direct communi-, cation with Canada