“When they were brought on board the Carpathia there were no New York people except myself, who had not lost friends, I was the only one in a position to befriend them, and I went to the committee of passengers we had on board and offered to take them to my home.
“They gladly gave them to me because it meant that otherwise some society would grab them and they might be separated and never reunited.
“I think that the boys are French, but perhaps Swiss, French or Alsatian. I have tried them in Italian, German and English, but they cannot understand. Louis, the oldest, is brown eyed, with curly brown hair, very regular teeth and has no scar or mark on his body that would identify him. Both are well bred. The little fellow is just like his brother, but a year younger. Both have very long, curling lashes.
“When they got up this morning they asked first thing for a bath, and at breakfast placed their napkins under their chins themselves. Louis came aboard wrapped in a blanket that a sailor had given him. The other boy had a little blue coat with white collar. Louis’s French is not a patois and he has a very large vocabulary.
“I shall keep them till they are identified and make every effort to find out who they are. Any one who can help me will win my thanks and the thanks doubtless of some poor, stricken relatives. It seems almost impossible that these boys can fail to be identified in this day and generation.”
CHAPTER XIII.
LIFEBOATS BUNGLINGLY HANDLED.
Widow of College Founder Scores Management for Lack of Drill—First Thought Damage was Slight—Aid May Have Been Near—No Oil in Life Lamps—Hudson, N. Y., Woman’s Pathetic Recital—A. A. Dick, of New York, Talks.
The urgent need of lifeboat drills on the trans-Atlantic liners was touched upon by Mrs. William R. Bucknell, widow of the founder of Bucknell University, and herself one of the survivors of the disaster, in the course of a graphic account of the wreck of the Titanic given by her at the home of her son-in-law, Samuel P. Wetherill, Jr., at 23d and Spruce sts., Philadelphia.
Mrs. Bucknell said that not only were the passengers on the Titanic absolutely unfamiliar with the life saving equipment of the vessel, but that the equipment was inadequate and even faulty.
The lifeboats were bunglingly fastened to their davits, she said, and many of the collapsibles were too stiff to open and thus useless for service.