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.
“JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON”
There came a deadlock and finally some one suggested that the decision be left to Mayor Napoleon Drouin of Quebec. The mayor was called and each father presented what he considered proof that the child belonged to him. The mayor, however, after a study of the features of Mrs. Archer and those of the child, decided that the baby was not the Archer child, and he finally awarded the baby to Cullen.
While the controversy between Cullen and Archer was going on a woman attired in clothes of coarse texture wandered past the bodies of the children, stopping to lift up the coffin lids and gaze tenderly on the little faces. She was a survivor and was looking for the baby that had been torn from her arms.
One child with dark hair and features of a cherub, bearing many bruises, attracted her attention. She believed the baby was hers, but she was not sure. “My child,” she said, “has one tooth on the right side.” Bending over she reverently opened the mouth of the tot and then a moan escaped her. “It’s mine,” she whispered, and untied a black baby ribbon that ran around the neck. Weeping she was helped to the office of the coroner, where she obtained a burial certificate and received permission to have the body shipped to her home.
BODIES BRUISED AND MUTILATED
Many similar tragic incidents were enacted in the course of the day, and by nightfall there were twelve other bodies of which identifications were made but of which the relatives were not sure because of the bruised and mutilated condition of the bodies.
A glance at the corpses taken in a walk along the line revealed the story of the collision and the incidents following. Almost all bore marks of violence inflicted by contact with parts of the wrecked ship or in struggles in the water. There were bodies of women whose heads were split open or gashed. It is possible that women running from their staterooms in the darkness following the collision ran against stanchions or were hurled against the walls of the sides of the corridors. The wounds also indicated that some of the women had been crushed when the collier buried her steel nose in the side of the Empress.
Officials in Rimouski have said also that the bodies of the women showed that several of them had been stabbed, that bodies of men had been found with knives in their hands. At any rate, it was apparent by a glance at the shrouds that had been placed on the bodies of both men and women that there were other wounds not disclosed on the faces.
In addition to the bodies received in Quebec, a number had been identified at Rimouski and shipped to the homes of relatives. If the Empress is raised many other bodies trapped in their staterooms will probably be obtained.