TWO CLAIM SAME BABY
Scarcely had he turned away when T. H. Archer, who had lost wife and baby in the wreck and had escaped himself, began to study the faces of the babies. He had found the body of a woman that he supposed to be his wife. He came upon the body of a child marked No. 118, which had been identified only a few minutes before by Cullen as the body of his baby. Archer insisted that the body was that of his baby Alfred. He was told that Cullen had decided that the boy was his own child.
The two men were brought together by Canon Scott. Both were gracious and affable and both consented to study the features of the face again. A police officer lifted up the coffin in his arms and held it while the two men scanned the face of the child. Cullen decided he would go and get the maid. He disappeared. Then Archer asked the officer to carry the baby to a window, where he looked again at the face of the baby. He wanted to see the knee of the baby, but that was so bruised and discolored that the little knee proved no help. He insisted, however, that the baby was his and accompanied by the clergyman he took it back to Coroner G. Will Jolicœur and had the child registered as his. Canon Scott, feeling that there might be a mistake, counseled the man to make a study of the features of his wife and compare them with those of the child. Archer consented to do so. While that was going on Cullen returned with the maid, who, after a quick glance, agreed that the baby belonged to Cullen. Each bereaved father clung to the belief that the child was his.