Page 205 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 23 - 26

- Well, it would be better to do that. 25150. Oh, yes, I quite agree. Now I want to ask you this question. Suppose that it took this ship 37 seconds to turn her two points, and that in that time she would travel 1,300 feet - supposing those to be the facts, and the helm was put hard a starboard as soon as the berg was sighted, the berg must then have been sighted more than 400 yards off? - Yes. 25151. That would be so of course? - Yes. (The Witness withdrew.) The Attorney-General: There is a very short Witness I should like to take. It is not relevant to any issue which is before you except in answer to one question but it is very desirable he should state what he has to say in order to allay a considerable amount of feeling with regard to three persons whose bodies were found and it was said they had died from starvation. I only want that point cleared up. The Commissioner: Is that something we have seen in the newspapers? The Attorney-General: There has been a good deal said about it. I should like to call a Witness on this matter. Dr. RIVERSDALE SAMPSON FRENCH, Sworn. Examined by Mr. BUTLER ASPINALL. 25152. On the 13th of May of this year were you surgeon on the steamship “Oceanic”? - Yes. 25153. And on that date was she on her voyage from England to the United States? - Yes. 25154. And somewhere in the course of that day was a boat sighted and did the “Oceanic” go to it, and did you go off in one of the “Oceanic” boats to that boat? - Yes on the second visit to the boat. 25155. Very well. I do not want it in great detail. Did it prove to be an Englehardt boat? - Yes. 25155a. Did you identify it as being one of the “Titanic’s” boats? - Yes. 25155b. What was in that boat? - Three bodies, a fur rug, a ring, and a lady’s comb. 25156. They were dead bodies? - Yes. 25157. I think you examined them? - Yes. 25158. And you finally read the Burial Service and committed them to the deep? - Yes. 25159. Were you as a medical man able to inform yourself whether they had died from exposure or from hunger, or both? - Do you mean in the light of what I know now or of what I knew then? 25160. In the light of what you know now? - By the light of what I know now, I know those bodies had died of exposure. 25161. (The Commissioner.) What were they, men or women? - Three men. One evidently was a passenger, and two probably members of the crew. The passenger’s body was in evening clothes, and we found his name. 25162. (Mr. Butler Aspinall.) There was a suggestion in consequence of something which appeared in the daily Press that you had said they had died of hunger. That is incorrect? - That is incorrect. Examined by Sir ROBERT FINLAY. 25163. I daresay you have seen the paragraphs that have appeared? - Yes. 25164. Stating you had come to the conclusion on examining them that they had died of