HUNDRED AND FIFTY BABES PERISHED WITH LUSITANIA.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 13701, 3 June 1915, Page 4

HUNDRED AND FIFTY BABES PERISHED WITH LUSITANIA.

LONDON, May 10. The Illustrated London Herald says there were on the Lusitania 60 babies who were less thftn' 12 months old, and more than 100 others whoSe ages ] did not reach two years.. Nearly all have .been drowned. • * ' ■ The babies were the talk of the ship, and everybody tried to look after them when the time came. There are numerous cases recorded where 'passengers and sailors stripped themselve of tlieir own lifebelts to put around the. little oneaf, but it was \i9eless, and about 150 of tho infants/ it is calculated, died from shock and exposure. One- mother lost all her three' young children, one six, one four and the third a baby m arms, six months old. She herstelf lives. She held up the three of them m the water, all the time shrieking for help. When she -was rescued by a boat- party the two eldest children were dead. Tlieir room was • required m the boatj and the mother was brave enough to realise this. "Give them to me," she cried. "Give them to me, my -bonnie, wee things. I will bury them. They are mine to bury, as they were mine to keep." With -her hair streaming down her back and her form shaking with sorrow, she took hold of each little one from the. rescuers and reverently placed it iv the water again, and others m the b6at wept with her as she mur mured a little sobbing praye/ to the "Great God above.-' But her cup of sorrow wa£ not yet completed, £ov just as ' they were landing, ncr third and only remaining child died m her arms.