AN extract from the Southern Daily Echo on April 20, 1912.

April 20th 1912

Yesterday, after a most agonising suspence of four days, details of the loss of the great liner Titanic were received. The Carpathia, with 705 survivors, arrived at New York in the early hours of the morning.

It now appears that there were 1400 passengeres on board the vessel. The crew numbered 940 making a total of 2340 persons. From the thrilling stories told by the survivors it would appear that the Titanic struck an iceberg from 50 feet to 100 feet high at 11.35pm. The blow was not a head on, but rather a glancing one. It thus ripped the great ship's side and made useless the most essential watertight compartments. The Titanic, it is alleged, was going at full speed at the time, Promises had been made to the passengers that no attempt would be made to break the record in crossing the Atlantic, but the passengers declare, and the officers deny, that the ship was urged ahead at full speed from the time she left Daunt's Rocks.

No ice was seen during the day, and it was a clear, starlight night, the ship's searchlights not being in use.

Capt. Smith was not on the bridge when the ship struck the iceberg, the first officer being in charge. Fifteen minutes after the ship had struck, the iceberg disappeared from view.

The passengers were at first assured the ship was in no danger, and was unsinkable. Fifteen minutes later they were called on deck and told to don lifebelts, and 40 minutes after the collision they were told to take to the lifeboats. Passengeres in bed were aroused not by the collision, but by the stopping of the engines.

The men in the first and second cabins made no attempt to save themselves but remained to sink with the ship, and watched the women being put off in the lifeboats, and half-a-dozen Italians were shot to protect the women in the boats.

The Titanic sank two hours 45 minutes after she struck the iceberg, and the boilers blew up a few minutes before she sank. The bow went first, and the stern reared high in the air and the great ship lunged into the icy depths of the sea. Many of the survivors state that as they Titanic sank the band was playing "Nearer, my God, to Thee." Just before she went down several of the men on board jumped into the sea, and these were for the most part the male survivors brought by the Carpathia.

The lifeboats carrying the women waited a mile from the ship until she sank, and then drew in and picked up the men found floating in the sea.

Four of those saved died as the result of exposure before the Carpathia reached New York, others were sadly maimed, some were temporarily insane, many had to be taken to hospitals, while private ambulances and physicians met many more.