The
smoking rooms and card rooms had been as well patronized
as usual, and a party of several notorious professional gamblers
had begun reaping their usual easy harvest.
As early as Sunday afternoon the officers of the Titanic
must have known that they were approaching dangerous
ice fields of the kind that are a perennial menace to the safety
of steamships following the regular transatlantic lanes off
the Great Banks of Newfoundland.
AN UNHEEDED WARNING
On Sunday afternoon the Titanic's wireless operator
forwarded to the Hydrographic office in Washington, Baltimore,
Philadelphia and elsewhere the following dispatch:
"April 14.--The German steamship Amerika (Hamburg-
American Line) reports by radio-telegraph passing two large
icebergs in latitude 41.27, longitude 50.08.--Titanic, Br.
S. S."
Despite this warning, the Titanic forged ahead Sunday
night at her usual speed--from twenty-one to twenty-five
knots.
CHAPTER IV
SOME OF THE NOTABLE PASSENGERS
SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN AND WOMEN ON BOARD, INCLUDING
MAJOR ARCHIBALD BUTT, JOHN JACOB ASTOR, BENJAMIN
GUGGENHEIM, ISIDOR STRAWS, J. BRUCE ISMAY, GEORGE D.
WIDENER, COLONEL WASHINGTON ROEBLING, 2D, CHARLES
M. HAYS, W. T. STEAD AND OTHERS
THE ship's company was of a character befitting the
greatest of all vessels and worthy of the occasion
of her maiden voyage.
Pages:
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49