Friday, March 30, 2007

Fascinating Titanic Letter

From The Times:
A passenger who died in the Titanic disaster had written to his wife from the liner, saying that he thought it was unsafe.
While most of his fellow passengers in first class were awestruck by their palatial surroundings, Alfred Rowe — his mood perhaps soured by a bad cold — sat down to write to his wife Constance, confiding that he thought the ship “too big” and a “positive danger”.
Mr Rowe, 59, a British businessman, was on his way to his ranch in Texas and had been on the ship for only 24 hours. His letter has come to light for the first time in 95 years.
Writing on Titanic-headed notepaper, he described a near-miss with the SS New York and admitted that he would prefer to be on another ship, adding: “The Mauretania and Lusitania are quite good enough and big enough for me.”
In an elegant copperplate hand, Mr Rowe described how the Titanic’s wake caused the New York’s moorings to break. “We had the narrowest possible escape of having a hole knocked in us yesterday by the New York,” he wrote. “The two ships actually touched and but for a steam tug that had a little hold on the New York we would have had a hole knocked in us.”

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