EGYPT INQUIRY

Evening Star, Issue 18032, 28 July 1922, Page 4

EGYPT INQUIRY

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright,

LONDON, July 26. At the Egypt inquiry, the third officer (Mr Brown) said that on returning to the deck after his adventure in the engineroom, he found that six or eight passengers would not attempt to get into tho boat, though it wms quite possible to slide down the side of. the ship. “We pushed thorn into the boat,” he said. “Personally, I was in the water an hour and a-half.”—A. and N.Z. Cable.

LASCARS AND 'THEIR REPUTATION.

■ A Calcutta message in ‘ The Times ’ of May 29 stated;

The stories about the behaviour of the lascars on board the P. and O. Egypt are received with incredulity _ in Bengal, where those men are held in high respect. The Bengal lascavs won a great reputation during the war, and the sinking of tho City of Paris by a submarine in April, 1917, is recalled, when tho lascars lined the decks like the soldiers on board the Birkenhead. The Chittagong lascars are descended from pirates, and retain the best traditions of seamanship. Since the advent of steam, however, recruitment has not been confined to these traditional seafarers, and steamers at Bombay often enlist Pathans as firemen. Calcutta opinion insists that there should be no general condemnation of lascars until the inquiry shall disclose from what class tho accused Indians were recruited, A ‘Times’ footnote added: According to the most careful accounts, the trouble on board the Egypt after the collision was caused by a panic of Goanese stewards,' not by lascars; and the mistake arose owing to the inaccurate us© of the word “lascar” to refer to all the Indian members of the crew.