LUBITANIA OUTRAGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15950, 22 June 1915, Page 4

LUBITANIA OUTRAGE.

SCENES AT QUBENSTOWN.

A TOWN OF THE DEAD. GERMANY'S APPALLING CRIME. HOW THE PASSENGERS DIED.

QuEENS-rowx to-day is a town of the dead and dying, the maimed, the sick —and the sorrowing, wrote a correspondent of the London Times on May 9. The hotels are hospitals and the Town Hall and other buildings are mortuaries. The arrival of survivors of the Lusitania has ceased, and most of the passengers and crew Who escaped with little or no injury have departed, but everywhere evidence o' the disaster is to be seen, and the brilliant sunshine has only heightened the feeling of gloom. Every now and then there has passed through the main street a mournful little procession of men bearing stretchers, on which, covered by a flag—l saw several on which the flag was the Stars ami Stripeswere the bodies of the latest victims of submarine attack. As they passed along the street, all hats were reverently raised, and soldiers and sailors who were among the crowds, standing stiffly erect, gave the salute. R-mnd themany mortuaries passed anxious relatives on their mournful quest. Reality of German Warfare. A visit to the mortuaries has brought home more thoroughly than anything before the frightful reality of war as it is waged by the Germans. The chief of the three resting-places of the dead is the market hall—a small, bare chamber emptied of its every-day furniture, and filled with a* many victims of the nameless submarine as it can hold. Men and I women have been passing down the files lof dead all day long, seeking relatives and friends, who, they feared, were among the missing. Human emotion has at times almost reached breaking-point. The dead lay as they were found, in the clothing in which they were taken from the water. Their faces still bore the expression Willi which each one of these cruelly slain men, women, and children had met death. For there were several children in the chamber of death. Heart-rending Eecogaitions. Men broke down when they looked upon a young mother lying there with her 'dead baby, perhaps 18 months old, folded in her protecting arms. Near by were two babies— I am told, too, of a sailor who was found with the body of a little child strapped on his shoulders. Two children, who went down together with their arms round each other, were still folded firmly together when their bodies were recovered. The awjul horror 'of these sights! . Some of the dead faces wore expressions of terror at their swift doom; others were calm and beautiful. There have been heart-rending recognitions, and there have been steps that sadly turned away to come again on the morrow. jf Arid, with all the solemn panoply of death, there is nothing to suggest to the mind of the reverent observer that this spectacle had even a remote connection with civilised warfare. There are no weapons with the bodies, although some aro badly scarred? and nothing to ward off a shameful blow. These poor souls were unarmed and helpless when they went to their,death. So it is that Queenstown is seething with the fury of men who ask themselves what they can do to mako the Germans answerable for this appalling crime. - ; Many Child Victims. Three stewards on the ship with whom I talked to-day were quite overcome by' the thought of the young girls and little children who are,/numbered among the victims. "We had an exceptionally large number of them," one said. "I did not see nftny of them on my deck after the torpedo struck us, and,-though I am not certain, I believe the majority were lost." While the loss of life has been tremendous, it might easily have been far heavier, for the situation when the Lusitania was torpedoed was really as bad as it could be.

JOY AND SOKEQW. MEETING THE SURVIVORS. 1 i ' SCENES AT LIVERPOOL. " , 1 Liverpool is profoundly moved over the 1 1 sinking of the Lusitania, wrote-the Liver- ? . 1 pool correspondent of the London Times .on, ' May 9- There are reasons why the ! calamity should be felt more keenly here . 1 than x anywhere else.. Liverpool regarded the magnificent ship as its own special 1 possession, one of the glories of its great 1 port, and there was no spectacle to which parents were more fond of 'bringing their children to see than that of Lucy," as she was affectionately called, coming in or [ going out of the Mersey. To add to the , sense of personal loss, the captain and nearly every man of the crew belonged to Liverpool. ' " Most of the survivors of the crew came heme this morning. They were expected. at five o'clock, and even at that early hour there was a big crowd at Lime Street Station, to meet them. They were the,' samp people whom I had seen last night waiting and weeping before the windows : of the Cunard offices, in which were shown the names of rescued passengers and crew as they were telegraphed from Queenstown. For the most part they were women and girls, the mothers, wives, sisters, and sweethearts of the crew. With grey shawls wrapped round their beads - they kept vigil through the night, and hungrily scanned each fresh bulletin. Now and then a piercing cry was heard. "He's saved," and three or four women would rush away frantically exclaiming, " Saved! Saved! Saved!" as if hastening t5 spread the good news in their neighbourhood. The scenes at Lima Street Station were more poignant still. Shortly after six o'clock the train came in with over 200 of tho crew. There 'were a few petty officers; the others consisted of engineers,'stewards, firemen, seamen, trimmers, watchmen, waiters, and messenger boys, who mads up the miscellaneous staff of the big Liner. Some had bandages round their heads, some were limping, and a few, more seriously injured, had to be carried away in motor-cabs. They all came in such clothes as they happened to have on when their ship was taken unawares, but what was most curious was the contrast between their stoical unconcerr. and the anxious, tear-stained faces of the throng of women and girls by whom they were immediately surrounded. I saw one elderly woman, with h?r shawl hanging from her shoulders and her grey hair, in disarray, advancing slowly through the crowd calling out, " Is Dan Daly among ye? Dan Daly, the fireman?" She was a mother "seeking distractedly for her son. Clutching by the arm each member of the crew she encountered, she would moaninglv ask whether he did not know Dan Daly, the fireman, but none of them knew him. At last she came upon' a fireman who did know, and I heard the decisive answer which shattered her hopes. " Dan is goue, ma'am. He was down below at the ' time." Throwing up her hands with a .. gesture of despair, the mother turned . aside to lean over a packing-case for sup- .. port while she wailed and wailed in ,: sorrow. ", ±S