The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 1911. THE WRECK OF THE MAINE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 3, 19 August 1911, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 1911. THE WRECK OF THE MAINE.

The report by General Bixby, Chief of the United States 'Army Engineer Corps which lias been engaged in raising the battleship Maine in Havana Harbour, confirmed the suspicions that, the vessel was not blown up by a Spanish mine. The Maine was destroyed by an explosion on February loth, 1898, with a loss of BGG lives. American Board of Inquiry examined the wreck immediately, and reported to the Navy Department tthat the explosion had been caused by an exterior mine. Relations between Spain and the United States had been strained for some time, and the “blowing up” of the Maine was made the pretext for the declaration of war by America, which resulted in the loss to Spain of the last of her empire in the (West Indies. Since then the question of how the Maine met her end has never been laid to rest. Many theories were put forward, , including one that disaffected Cubans caused tiro explosion in order to got American assistance against their Spanish rulers. It was not till 1910 that Congress voted a sum for raising the vessel. General Bixby has discovered that the explosion came from within, and that Spain cannot well have had any hand in it. A contemporary points out that such disastrous mistakes are not unknown to history. A very similar one was the belief by the mutineers in India that cow tat was used to grouse the cartridges of the British troops. That, like the Mains explosion, was, of course, a disastrously plausible pretext for war rather than a reason lor it; but it is seldom that the actual excuse ior lighting bears any close relation to its real cause.