Youth’s First and Last Voyage

Croydon can claim at least two victims of the Titanic disaster—one a youth on his first and last voyage on that ill-fated liner. He was Montague Thaler, aged 17, the son of Mr. Andreas Thaler, the proprietor of the Restaurant, No. 19, Station-road, West Croydon. 

This unfortunate young man was a steward on the Titanic, and, as we have said, was on his first voyage. Until quite recently he was engaged as junior clerk in the office of Mesers. John Thrift and Son, provision merchants, George-street, a post he had occupied for just over two years. His employers described him as a bright, cheerful youth, and the sad news has come as a great shock to them and his late colleagues. Office work, however, had little attraction for him, and like many another he felt the call of the sea. For some time he had been seeking a berth on the White Star line, and a month or two ago he expected to be appointed to a position on the Olympic, which, by a curious coincidence, only recently was in collision with the cruiser Hawke. He was greatly disappointed in his non-success on that occasion, but was correspondingly elated when, a fortnight ago, he received news that he had been appointed a steward on the Titanic. The happiest of young men, he was looking forward with keen anticipation to the realization of his desire, a life on the sea, and when his father wished him good-bye at Southampton a fortnight ago he was delighted at his prospects, little knowing, of course, the awful experience that was in store for him.

When the fateful news arrived his parents were naturally overwhelmed with anxiety and this was not relieved when, on Wednesday, the company told them "not to entertain too much hope.” "We thought it was a lucky opening for him when he got this berth,” said his father in a broken voice, to our representative yesterday, “and now—" Mr. Thaler has received a large number of letters of enquiry and sympathy, many of them from people he does not know, and he wishes, through the "Guardian,” to express his gratitude to them, as the letters are too numerous to answer separately.

HOPING AGAINST HOPE.

Another loss affecting Croydon is feared in the person of Mr. Arthur Albert Howell, of 12, Cliff-road, Wooton, Hitchin, the brother of Mr. Fredk., K. Howell, 11, Lower Drayton-place, Croydon, who is employed at the "Rising Sun” Hotel. Ninety-four stewards are reported to have been saved, so Mr. Howell still holds out hope for the safety of his brother, who was a second-class bedroom steward on the ill-fated Titanic. He is a Croydonian by birth, 32 years of age, married, and has two children. He first took to the sea at the age of fifteen, when he was trained on the "Warspite,” in the Thames. Subsequently he served the Philadelphian Line of America, and then he came into the employment of the White Star Line, with whom he has remained ever since. His first ship with that company was the Adriatic, then he joined the Olympic, which he was on at the time of the [Hawke] collision. After this accident he was stood off until the launch of the Titanic. "I am waiting,” said Mr. Fred Howell to a representative of this journal, “for good news, and hoping against hope, but I fear the worst is yet to come. I can find out nothing in the papers and I have been telephoning to the shipping office, but I don't know what to believe yet.”