Page 12 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 23 - 26

numbers of men and women saved, because that would shed a light on the number who sailed from Queenstown. The Attorney-General: I am much obliged to your Lordship for indicating the value of it. We will analyse the 113 and see how many were women and children, and then we can compare that with those saved. The Commissioner: I am speaking of emigrants still, and I think it would be impossible to distinguish among the third class between emigrants and people who were not emigrants. The Attorney-General: I am treating them all as emigrants. The Commissioner: You must treat them all as emigrants. The Attorney-General: That is what I am doing. The Commissioner: You can find out for me how many of them were shipped at Cherbourg, and how many of them were shipped at Southampton. The Attorney-General: Yes. The Commissioner: I should think those shipped at Southampton were probably not all emigrants; but it does not matter. It may be assumed that they all were. The Attorney-General: We will pursue that line and give your Lordship the figures on it and, so far as we can, trace the saved and see how many of the emigrants or third class passengers from each port were saved. The Commissioner: That can be done, of course. 22757. (Mr. Harbinson - To the Witness.) Have the Board of Trade any Regulations enjoining upon shipowners the necessity of having printed notices put up in, say, the third class accommodation to indicate which way third class passengers should go, which staircase they should use, in cases of emergency? - No. The Commissioner: Exercise your own common sense. Do you think, Mr. Harbinson, that if such notices were stuck up, any body would ever read them. Judging for myself I do not believe anyone would ever read them; I never should. Perhaps I ought to. The question is, What would happen, not what ought to happen. Have you ever been on board a ship? Mr. Harbinson: I have never been to America, but, if I may relate my personal experience, every time I go across the Channel one of the first things I do is to read the notices. The Commissioner: You are one of the most extraordinary men I have ever come across. The first thing I do, if it is about the middle of the day, when I get on a cross-Channel steamer is to get some lunch, and the notion that I should go about the decks or about the ship reading all the notices that are stuck up never occurred to me. The Attorney-General: That is not the class of literature your Lordship chooses. 22758. (Mr. Harbinson.) I regret that luncheon is an occupation I am never able to take part in at sea. (To the Witness.) Now, you make regulations in your instructions to emigrant ships as regards the third class accommodation, Sir Walter? - Yes. 22758a. I see you have it here. Do you, as a matter of fact, or have your Department, as a matter of fact, appointed travelling inspectors to see that in the course of the voyage between British ships in different ports the regulation that you make is carried out? - No. The Commissioner: On that point I should like to ask a question. Does the ship carry any officers whose duties may be described as those of a policeman, to give information and to see that order is kept? Mr. Harbinson: Yes, the Captain is responsible, I should say, and the Master-at-arms - the Captain certainly. He is responsible for order and discipline. The Commissioner: I am told the Master-at-arms discharges those duties. Is there only one Master-at-arms, or are there more? The Attorney-General: There were two on the “Titanic.” 22759. (The Commissioner.) Do you know what the duties of a Master-at-arms are, Sir Walter?