New Britain Herald Newspaper, November 14, 1928, Page 2

pe . ' Stakl and Magnell Appointed to Annapolis N. B. H. 8. Senior and N tive of City Were Boy- hood Friends When Families Were Neigh- bors, Two boys whose families were neighbors several yeurs ago on South Burritt street have been named by Congressman Fenn for ap- pointment to the United Sjates Naval academy at Annapolis, Md. They are Paul L. Stahl, son of Mr. and Mrs. Paul A. Stahl of 911 Corbin avenue, this city, and Alfred T. Magnell, son of Alfred E. Magnell, financial editor of the Hartford Courant. When the families lived | near each other on South Burritt street, the boys often played to- gether. Stahl took the examination on | October 3 with three cays' notice. | He passed with flying colors. He is 17 years old end a member of the class at New Britain High school | which will be graduated in February. | He is a graduate of the Central Junior High school. His father is | structural engineer and chief drafts- Juan at the plant of the Berlin Con- | struction Co. Magnell is a native of this city. | He led all Hartford county candi- | dates u year ago when he took the | Annapolis examinations but on ac- count of ill health he was unable to accept the appointment. He is a member of the freshman class at Amherst, The candidates will take a physi- cal examination in February. Alternates to the vacancy for | which Magnell is named as principal are: First alternate, Percival 8. Brown, 201 Oakland street, Bristol; | second alternate, Henry Meyer 170 Linnmoore street, Hart- hird alternate, Ernest Francis Judd, 1398 Boulevard, West Hart- | ford. The following were chosen as al- | ternates for the vacancy in which Btahl ix named as principal: First | alternate, Howard Werkelin, 19| Cedar Ridge road, Newington; sec- | ond alternate, Alexander Moncrieff, 24 Pratt street, Glastonbury; third alternate, Alexander M. Spalter, 208 Farmington avenue, Hartford. In making the nominatiors, Congress- man Fenn has designated the candi- dates according to their standing in the examination. VIGTIM CONDEMNS - HANDLING OF SHIP (Continued From First Page) everything wrong. He should have had ships standing by us long betore he did. Not a passenger should have been sent overboard before other vessels were standing by.”" & Alfredo Ramos, an Argentine stu. dent who was returning home on the Naval Academy Vestris atter a vacation here and in Europe, told o the horror of pas- sengers placed ia lifeboats which could not be lowered to the water. He was in one of four such craft he sald, swung out over the waves on the davits and then left hanging there. He with some of the others took to the water, trusting to their Yife belts. He never saw the others again and had no knowldge whether | | they had been saved like him or i bad been lost. Saw Husband Drown Mrs. Earl Devore saw the lifeboat in which her husband, an automo- bile racer, was sitting, go down. The small crew of Negry seamen in her own boat, she said, refused to go to the aid of these struggling in the water after their craft had been lost. It would be dangerous to let so many additional human beings clamber into their boat, the Negroes told her, Mrs. Devore reported. She called them cowards, byt they were sullen. “Sit down,"” they yelled and she had to obey. Another Blames Captain E. J. Maryin of Montclair, N. J., R representative of the Standard Oil company of New Jersey, maid the responalbility would rest with Captain Carey. Mr. Marvin saiéd the skipper had been derelict in mot summoning aid 24 hours earlier. Marvin also declarsd that had the lifeboats been sound and properly launched there would have beea mo loss of life, since the water, though rough from a recent storm, was warm. However, he said, the sea was at no time so turbulent that the boats could not have been navi- gated. Marvin Indicated that many of the crew, still unaccounted for, might have gone down with ti ship. Bhe dropped suddenly, the man said, and only a few of the boats were what he would call filled. Tells of Carey’s Death George Bantanna of New York told the story of Captain Carey's dis- appearance. Santanna asserted he tried to reach three lifeboats but each de- nied him entrance. He couldn't swim and had put on a lifebelt before the ship sank. “I found myself en the topside,” he continued, “alone, save for Cap- tain Carey. He was wearing a heavy top coat but no lifebelt. The ship began sinking fast. You could feel her going down beneath you. “Then we went down, it seemed a huge wave was pouring over us and the captain and myself were both in the water. We were drawn down by the suction. I came up and reached for a floating box. T didn't #ee the captain again. I.don't know how long I floated, but finally was picked up by lifeboat number 5. “I had been swimming after the boat for some time, but the Negro members of the crew rowed away. “Other people were begging to get aboard, too, but the Negroes didn't seem, to want any more aboard. But ‘Chtet- Engincer Adams mide them #top and we swam to it and were taken in.” i Held On for 24 Hours P. A Dans, South American representative of the Radio Corpora- ERE'S a Six that stands out from therankandfileofits price class likethedrum-majorofaband. Styled right up to the next tick of the clock. Eowerful there’s nothing comparable. A six that appeals to And so your sporting blood. that appeals to your judgment. Come take its measure! s tion of America, and Mrs. Clars Ball of Pleasantville, N. Y., a stewardess, bad clung to debris for nearly twenty-four hours before they were picked up. It was these two whom Captain Schuyler Cummings of the American Shipper was called “two of the pluckiest people I ever met.” Dana was in the next to last life- boat to leave the Vestris. The lit- tle craft turned over as it hit the water and ity passengers, including ten women and scveral children, were scattered by the waves. Dana himself was swept a distance of 100 yards. Then he looked back and saw the women and youngsters clinging to the boat. He tried to swim back, but at that moment the Vestris went down and he had to swim for his life to escape the ter- rific suction. A few minutes later he and sev- eral other men tried to right the overturned craft. As they tugged at her, the body of a woman floated out from beneath. saved by Her Leg The effort to turn the boat over failed, Dana said, the air compart- ments had come out and tn. oraft was falling apart. He naiMged to| reach & plank from the Vestrid' raft. As he grasped it he saw a wo- man's leg. He grasped that, too, and tugged. The woman was Mrs. Ball. ‘With one arm supporting her and the other clinging to the raft, he en- couraged her and finally she found strength to hold on for herself. Dana and Mrs. Ball were in the water from 1:30 p. m. Monday to noon on Tuesday. Drifting through- out the long night they could see the searchlights on big ships, poking through the darkness to find surviv- ors, but ne of the light-atabs fell on the weary pair. The battleship Wyoming, one of Uncle S8am's good samaritans, slip- ped along their horison at dawn, but she didn't: come their way. ‘Waved Shirt as Signal Then the American Shipper slip- ped into their narrow field of vision. Dana tore oft his shirt and waved it, frantically, desperately. Sharp eyes aboard the Shipper saw the signal, and Dans and Mrs. Ball were picked up. The woman's nerves were 8o badly shaken when the rescue ship docked that she could not talk. Dana, & tall, gaunt man ,with eyes reddened from the brine, wore heavy bandages around his neck, for the muscles were very, very tired from their task of holding his head above the water for so long. Mrs. Laurenda Moore of 21’ Clin- ton avenue, Jersey City, an elderly stewardess, had sought to comfort a woman passenger Who had seen her husband tossed into the ocean from one of the lifeboats. “He will be picked up,” Mra. Moore assured, “‘keep & good heart.” Just then she saw a frail woman with & baby, trying to clamber into a lifeboat. Graphic Stories Mrs. Moore took the infant, to | help the mother, and was getting into a lifeboat with it when the guy line broke or slipped from a seas man's hands. The child was cata- pulted into the water and Mss. Moore followed. The baby was not found. Mrs. Moore was picked up by a lifeboat in which there were five people. They had some hardtack to nibble, some water, a lantern and some wet flares. What happened after that Mrs. Moore doesn't know, for she lay iIn RI‘D how the public is going for this new Royal Eight! Because it looks like a million dollars . ... Because it's swift as the wind. A ng, low, ful. And ifs ««.at a price A mew Reoyal qul:“lr-siu Eight coma in the bottom of the boat. Holds Captain at Fault Mrs. Devore, overcome by brief over her husband's death, mid she felt it “imperative” to make a state- ment on what had happened. She held Captain Carey responsible for not ha called aid sooner and for not ordering down the lifeboats when there would have been less danger. - This was her story: “Saturday the weather was fine. Sunday it was rough. There was & swaying and listing of the ship. On Monday mioraing my husband ex- amined the register in the room and said: . ‘] have never been on a ship where there has been such a list. It looks to me like serious trouble.’ Reassured Passengrrs “We dressed quickly and with dif- ficulty found an officer. He assured us that everything was all right. By noon everything would be fine and dandy and we would be under way. ‘The ships officers went about and explained that everything was all i Then came the order to take to the lifeboats, Y I was in lifeboat No. 8, with my | husband and Mr. and Mrs. Norman K. Baten of Los Angeles. Normau is a bicycle rider. He was going to South America to do some racing. This boat had a hole in it and five minutes before it was lowered this hole was patched with a piece of tin and some najls. S8everal of us called to the captain ‘and asked ‘Isn’t it dangerous to send people out in a boat in this shape’ and he turned around and walked away and said nothing. Boat to Leak “We had nothing else to do but take the boat. We got into it. As soon as it got into the water it be- gan leaking. We were overcrowded. The boat shipped water. B8he was filling fast by now. Lifeboat No. 1, with four Negro seamen in it, came by. We called to them to give us ald and take some of us out so that all might be saved. They drew near and my husband urged me to jump. I did so, then they pulled away from No. 8. A sea came in between us. When I saw No. 8 again it was cap- sized and everyone was in the water. I begged the men to go back and pick up my husband and my friends but they would not do it.” Mrs. Devore said that during the launching of the lifeboats there was pandemonium under deck; and from this she judged the crew was being held back until the passengera could be-placed In the lifeboats. 8he knew her husband must have gone down when Na. § boat was swamped and was bitter about the crew of No. 1, which boat, she said, could easily have taken caré of all the men and wemen in No. 8. Marvin sald the Vetris had run into & heax le with wind at 60 to 76 miles an hour. Disabled On Sunday “It was obvious,” he asserted, “that the stecamer was disabled on Sunday. 8he carried a moderate list all day Sunday and it is our under- standing that water was rapidly ful- ing-the bunkers. “One of the doors of the ecoal bunkers on the starboard side, or the side that went under water when J E W E L that’s quality-buile rugged and power. equipped with West. inghouse Vacuum Brakes and“One Shot” centralized chassis lubrication. Just compare! A mew Big Six .1525 Eighe 83 91793 All Prices 1. 0. b. Factery CHARLAND AUTO SERVICE STATION New Britain, Conn. CAANDLER CHANDLER-CLEVELAND MOTORS CORPORATION . 432 Main St. CLEVELAND, ON1O she began to list so heavily, defective condition. It is the coa. sehsus that the SOS. should have been eent on Sunday, for if it Rad been sent then steamers would have been alongside on Monday morning. * “It was also the opinion of some of us—and I have talked with most of our group—that not one lifeboat would have been lost it the 8OB. had been sent at the proper time, and if the lowering of the lifeboats had not besn left to the last minute. As a matter of fact one lifeboat went down with the ship. It was No. 6, and she didn’t get 2 chance even to clear.” Monday night, Marvin said, brought thunder, lightning, rain and heavy seas, but the worst ordeal was watching the searchlights appear and disappear without spotting the boats. Sharks Await Victims Marvin saw the body of a man floating near his lifeboat. Then it suddenly sank. When it came up one arm was missing—gulf stream shark were waiting. . Lifeboat Wrecked G. Gladianos, pantryman on the Vestris, had a station in a lifeboat to which 20 women and children were assigned. He had a baby in kis arms. Just as the craft settled upon the water another boat crash- ed down upon it, smashing the little one’s head, cracking Gladian- os' boat in two and hurling all its occupants into the water. What hap. pened to them then, he couldn’t say. 8. Badowskl, & Los Angeles sea- man, declared every port hole on the Vestris was defective, that the scuppers were plugged and that the bulkhead doors had not been water tight. Frank Johnson, chief officer of the Vestris, was asked whether he could definitely say what had caused the disaster. *“I have nothing to say,” he re- plied. E. M. Walcott, of Halifax, N. 8., was among the last to see Captain Carey. “When I came up in the water,” sald Walcott, “I found the captain near me. He had no life- belt. He just came up and went down again.” Walcott was picked up by a liteboat. Only One to Smile Conrad 8. Slaughter, an auditor of the International Harvester com- pany, was probably the only smiling passenger in the group brought in by the American Shipper. At Quar- antine he had learned that his wife was safe aboard the French tanker Myriam, Blaughter also criticized Captain Carey for being “too slow” in send- ing on the SOS. and for waiting too long to lower the boats. Mr. and Mrs. Blaughter were on the port side of the Vestris as she was sinking. As the water engulfed them they were parted. When Slaughter next saw his wife, ghe was a hundred yards away and when he tried to swim to her he could not find her. George De Vale of Brazil sald the 108s of life was caused partly by the failure to fasten the life boats in preparation for abandoning the ship. “We let the women get on board first,” he rel E R 8 picked up. All I had on was my pa- Jamas” William W. Davies, American oor- respondent of La Nacion, Buenes Alres, was suffering from expesure when rescued by the American Ship- per, recounted that he was invited to sit at Captain Carey’s table in the dining room Saturday night. The captain, he said, never appeared. “He may have been working." Davies added. “At any rate I didn't see him until the last moment.” New York, Nov. 14 M—The res. cue ship Berlin, bringing 23 sur- vivors of the Vestris, docked shortly after 9 o'clock this morning. Regular first class passengers were debarked first, as a great crowd watched with eager faces from the pler, hoping to catch @& slimpse of friends or relatives who had been picked up by the North German Lloyd liner. Wearing borrowed clothes, worn and unkept, 23 of the 200 survivors of the disaster came back to New York on the Berlin at almost the same time that 135 others were ar- riving on the American Shipper. 2 Differ Among the survivors on the Ber- lin there was considerable difterence of opinion as to the cause of the disaster, Archibald Bannister, negro boat. swain’s mate, believed that sudden shifting of the cargo in stormy weather was responsible for the leak that tipped the ship over on its beam ends and made it necessary for the 129 passengers and 199 crew members, of which 108 are still un- accounted for, to abandon ship. Other opinions were that a leak, small at first, enlarged for no par- ticular reason as the ship proceeded and caused an increasing list. Some of the passengers reported that one of the life boats had a hole in it and planks had to be nailed over the aperture before it could be launched, leaking dangerously and beginning to sink before it was 100 feet from the Vestris, which lay lurching in the waves with steam spouting from its port holes. One of the oldest laws of the sea —women and children first—was uniformly obeyed at the sinking of the steamer Vestris off the Virginia Capes, survivors arriving on the Berlin reported. Captain Carey Lost Definite word of the dec‘h of Cap- taln Willlam J. Cardy, master of the Vestris, was brought by the Berlin. Alfred Duncan, second steward of the Vestris, said he and Carey were standing on the bridge of the ship up to a niinute or so before she Isank. Duncan wore a lifebelt, but Carey had none, The ward jumped Just before i i piE $ .'E" g3t fz ngiiéi 7] 3 #3F. one on the boat deci. It was then apparent that the ship was sinking, and the order ‘take to the bosts” was issued. Pumps Fossibly Falled There were reports among the survivors that the pumps had mot worked well when the hold began to fill and some cven told of frantic efforts bail out the great ship with hand buckets. . All agreed that there was no panic and that women aad children were given precedence in obtaining positions in the lifeboats. Duncan is Hero Carlos Quiros, chancellor to the Argentine consulate general who was & passenger on the Vestris and was saved by the Berlin, said that the outstanding hero of the disaster was Becond Steward Alfred Duncan of the Vestris. Duncan, he sald, con- ducted himself with utmost compo- sure through the trying hours and helped many of the women and children to the boats. Quiros said that perfect order did not prevadl at all times, in ofie in- stance five negro passengers from the third class taking & lite boats all to themselves in their haste to get away from the sinking ship. . There - was some difficulty with lowering the lifeboats, according to Quiros. Two boats were filled with passengers as the little craft hung in the davits and then it was found impossible to lower them to the wa- ter, The passengers had to ecram- ble back to the tilting wave washed deck to wait their turns in other boats. Others Give Praise There was some criticism among the survivors on the Berlin, nota- bly that by Quiros, but on the whole this group was strong in its praise of the way in which captain and crew of the Vestris had acted. There was no such general criticlem as that made by the sur¢ivors on the American Bhipper. Duncan, the rd, reported to b i ] i £ E 3 ;. i T; i by fii; rity # i { | | I ! i i : f ] § ? | i H : i ? i 5 ; i | : : hou! lite beat 13. CONTEST FIREGAST OVER GAS STATIONS « Members of the board of adjust. ment at thelr meeting tonight will it reaches the common council for enactment into ordinance. The change has fo do with gaso- line filling stations in business A districta. The 3one now restricts this type of busines and efforts om. the part of gasoline companies to galn special exeeptions have almest in. variably met with opposition frem property owners in the mnelghbor- heoda. Members of the board are ef the bellef that the territorial expansion of the city makes it advisable te provide, with suitable safeguards, for the creating of community oenters, by providing all districts with full conveniences, Including ample eup- plies of gasoline. At tonight's meeting, the Frankiin square lunch-cart fight will be re. sumed when the - application of property ewners for & restricti zone change 18 considered. g Decision will also be announced te- night in the application of the Acorn Bearing Co. tor a permit to extend ita Mill stroet factory into a residential ares. This case was argued at two previous sessions of the board. DR. RICE DIES Delaware, Ohie, Nov. 14 (UP)— Dr. Willlam North Rice, profemor emeritus of geology at Waeslayan university, Middletown, Conn., died suddenly the home of his son here yesterday. He was 83 years old. The aged aclentist was the author of outstanding scientific and re- ligious works and held the degrees of doctor of philosophy from Y. and honorary degrees from Wesley- an and Byracuse. During his career he was three tim th resident of Wesleya: GENERATIONS Lustrous Pearls--: Romantic Cameos Precious Gems in gold—in platinum. Treas- ures from the world over— to you. Fitting gifts for all occasions —birthdays and house-warm- ings, holidays and anniversa- ries, wedding days. Every event on your social calendar finds ‘its appropriate tokemn here. Nor need you wait till your ship comes in. Today is as good as its deed—and you may be sure Porter & Dyson’s prices are just as inviting. Md@@g@m [ FIFTY-FOUR MAIN STREET