At 2.20 a.m. on Monday morning the White Star liner Titanic, the latest and largest of the ocean greyhounds, foundered in the North Atlantic in 2000 fathoms, carrying with her, it is to be feared, no fewer than 1500 souls. The tragedy is the greatest in the annals of the sea. Never before has the loss of life been placed so high in a case of shipwreck. In 1878 the Princess Alice went down with 600 souls. The Nanchow sank in 1892, when 509 lives were lost. La Bourgogne foundered in 1898 after collision with the Cormartyshire, and 546 perished. The Camorta, with 739 lives, was lost in a cyclone in 1902. In 1904 the General Slocum, an American excursion steamer, caught fire, and the loss of life was placed at 1000. But these disasters, terrible though they are, are now eclipsed.

The Titanic carried 1455 passengers and 903 of a crew – a total complement of 2358 – and of these the number saved is computed, according to the highest estimate at the time of writing, at 868. Among those who are supposed to have perished are the captain, Mr. Smith: Mr. W.T. Stead, the world-famous journalist and critic: Major Arch. Butt, President Taft’s aide-de-camp: Mr. H.B. Harris, the well-known theatrical manager: Mr. J. Hutnelle, the popular novelist: and a number of millionaires, including J. J. Astor, G. D. Widener, B. Guggenheim, and Isadore Strauss. Full details of the accident are not yet to hand, but it is known that the Titanic struck an iceberg, probably a submerged reef, and went down in four hours. The early reports were conflicting. It was stated that a number of liners, in response to the wireless signal, “S.O.S,” sent out by the doomed vessel, had arrived at the scene of the accident in time to take off the passengers and crew, and that the Titanic herself had been taken in tow and was making slowly for New York. How such a story came to be despatched is unknown but, unfortunately, it was quickly proved to be untrue. Early on Tuesday news came to hand which revealed the magnitude of the disaster. Locally the interest of the public was as intense as elsewhere. All day long the bulletin board at the “Highland News ” Office was scanned by a never-ceasing stream of enquirers, who were evidently deeply moved at the awful catastrophe.

The first vessel on the scene of the accident was the Cunard liner Carpathia. The ill-fated Titanic had sunk, but her lifeboats had been successfully launched – which would seem to show that in these terrible last hours order and discipline were duly observed – and these were picked up by the Cunarder. The boats, all of which are accounted for, contained some 800 passengers, mainly women and children, and a number of the crew. Later the Parisian and the Virginian arrived on the scene, but although they cruised round the spot for hours in the hope of picking up fugitives on rafts or wreckage no living soul was discovered.

Two questions are on the lips of everyone. How is it that the Titanic, which with its patent watertight compartments was supposed to be unsinkable, went down in the short space of four hours: and how, if she remained afloat even for that short space, was it found impossible to find accommodation in the boats and rafts for all those on board?

In Regard to the first question there are alternative explanations offered. The Titanic might have run over a submerged part of the iceberg before actually striking stem on. In this way the bottom plates might get torn off, or stove in, along a considerable part of her length, letting the water into several of the sections divided by watertight bulkheads. Or it is possible that the immense size of the vessel accounted for the completeness of the disaster. It is easy to conceive that, in a vessel of such huge proportions, the centre of gravity once altered (as would happen when, with the bow stove in, she went down by the head) strains and stresses would be set up which no skill in construction would be able to resist. The vessel would break up of its own weight.

But the saddest thing is that there appears to have been time to save all the lives on board had there been sufficient accommodation in the boats. The Board of Trade regulations were not shirked. Indeed, boat accommodation was provided in excess of the rules laid down. But the fact remains that on a vessel got up in the most sumptuous style, regardless of expense, where room could be found for a special promenade deck reserved for millionaires, lifeboats were provided for but 900 of the 2300 people on board.

Already the superstitions are looking for signs and premonitions. The sun’s eclipse came a day or two late for those who interpret the signs and wonders of the heavens as forebodings of disaster. But a large section of the Press thinks fit to record that at the official luncheon on board prior to the departure time one of the tables collapsed. It is said that the incident was much commented on at the time, and the hope was expressed that it did not forebode disaster. To most minds such a reference is altogether out of place. But there are some to whom stories of this sort seem to come almost as a consolation. It seems, by some strange psychological process, to convince them that the most dreadful calamities, like the foundering of the Titanic, are not the result of blind chance, or merely mechanical catastrophes, but that a directing Power is shaping our ends, and that if we but read the signs of the times straight all mysteries will become clean. And no doubt there are signs which, if we seek to decipher in the true spirit, will lead us to see that “all things work together for good.”