Most of these offers of course would have to be rejected.
The mayor also said that Colonel Conley of the Sixty-ninth
Regiment offered to turn out his regiment to police the pier,
but it was thought that such service would be unnecessary.
CROWDS AT THE DOCKS
Long before dark on Thursday night a few people passed
the police lines and with a yellow card were allowed to go on
the dock; but reports had been published that the Carpathia
would not be in till midnight, and by 8 o'clock there were
not more than two hundred people on the pier. In the next
hour the crowd with passes trebled in number. By 9 o'clock
the pier held half as many as it could comfortably contain.
The early crowd did not contain many women relatives of the
survivors. Few nervous people could be seen, but here and
there was a woman, usually supported by two male escorts,
weeping softly to herself.
On the whole it was a frantic, grief-crazed crowd. Laborers
rubbed shoulders with millionaires.
The relatives of the rich had taxicabs waiting outside the
docks. The relatives of the poor went there on foot in the
rain, ready to take their loved ones.
A special train was awaiting Mrs. Charles M. Hays, widow
of the president of the Grand Trunk Railroad.
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