FEAR 1,200 PERISHED

So Far as Known only 866 Escaped in the Wreck of the Titanic

SHIP SANK IN FOUR HOURS

Went Down Before Rescuing Steamers Arrived

LIST OF RESCUED

Contains Names of Few Montreal Passengers

SCENE OF DESOLATION

Carpathia, First Vessel to Reach Location of Disaster, Found Only Lifeboats and Wreckage, Titanic Having Disappeared

THE OFFICIAL REPORT

The following message from Capt. Maddock, of the white Star Liner Olympic, was received at the White Star office in New York last night:

“Carpathia reached Titanci position at daybreak. Found boats and wreckage only. Titanic sank about 2.20 a.m. in 41.16 N., 50.14 W. All her boats accounted for containing about 675 souls saved, crew and passengers included. Nearly all saved women and children. Leyland liner Californian remained and searching exact position of disaster. Loss likely to total 1,800 souls.”

Reference to the adjoining columns will show that the officials of the White Star line regard this estimate of the loss of life as excessive, as the passenger list and crew only totaled 2,170, of whom 866 are on the Carpathia.

While the fate of the majority of the 2,100 persons on board the mammoth White Star liner Titanic, which sank early yesterday on the Newfoundland Banks after a collision with an iceberg still remains in doubt, and it is feared more than 1,200 persons were lost, a note of good cheer came from the ocean ways by wireless between one and two o’clock this morning.

It was in the shape of a wireless message from the White Star liner Olympic, one of the vessels hovering near the scene of the disaster, flashing the news that 866 of the Titanic’s passengers, mostly women and children, were being brought to port by the Cunard liner Carpathia. Other messages later brought confirmatory tidings.

First reports were that the Carpathia had saved but 675 persons. The new figures reduced the list of those for whose fate fear was felt by more than 200, and, as seems probable, practically all those saved were passengers. It would appear that all but approximately 450 of the vessel’s passengers are accounted for. A partial list of the survivors received from the Carpathia includes the names of many women of prominence who were on the steamer.

After the first desperate calls of the Titanic for help had been sent flying through space and brought steamers for hundreds of miles around speeding to the scene, what seems to have been an impenetrable wall of silence was raised between her and the anxious world. The giant liner so far as last night’s advices appear, went to her fate without so much as a whisper of what must have been the scenes of terrific tragedy being enacted on her decks. In the lack of even a line from a survivor, imagination pauses before even trying to conjecture what passed as the inevitable became known and it was seen that of the more than 2,000 human lives with which she was freighted there could be hope of saving as it appears, far less than half.

Other than the early news last evening that 675 persons, largely women and children, had been rescued from the liner’s boats by the Cunarder Carpathia, more than six hours of the night passed without a word as to the fate of the remainder of those who were on board her at the time of the fateful crash.

Along the entire Atlantic coast wireless apparatus was attuned to catch from any source the slightest whisper of hope that possibly on board one of the many steamships which rushed to the assistance of the stricken Titan of the seas were other survivors of the sunken vessel. But from none of the ships reported to be at or near the scene of what, viewed in the light of the probabilities, may be recorded as the world’s greatest marine horror, came the slightest syllable of encouragement to the anxiously waiting world until news of the addition of than 200 to the number of those saved by the Carpathia brought decided encouragement.

Early last night there was hope that any moment might bring word of cheer. But anxiety deepened and many friends and relatives of those who sailed on the Titanic began to despair as hour after hour passed and the night grew old without word from either of the Allan liners, Parisian or Virginian, believed to be, with the exception of the Carpathia, the vessels nearest the Titanic’s ocean burial place when she made her fateful plunge.

As the Titanic sank before 3 o’clock in the morning and it was not hoped during the day that the Virginian could reach the scene before 10 a.m. at the earliest, while the Parisian was said to be some distance further away, it was feared even by the White Star officials, trying their best to calculate differently and yet accurately, that they would not have reached the scene in time to be of service.

The steamer Virginian was finally heard from at 2.15 o’clock this morning. She did not report the presence of any survivors on board, the message from her stating that she would bring to St. John’s, Nfld., such survivors of the Titanic as she “may rescue.” The fact that the Virginian was to go out of her course to put into St. John’s on her voyage to Liverpool, was taken as a favorable indication, arousing the hope that after all she might have picked up some of the victims of the wreck and was bringing them to port.

The Titanic herself lies buried two miles beneath the ocean’s surface, midway between Sable Island and Cape Race. Her position when she struck the iceberg was given as latitude 41.46 north, longitude 50.14 west. According to the Carpathia’s advices, the liner which struck the iceberg at 10.25 o’clock Sunday night sank at 2.20 o’clock Monday morning nearly four hours later in the latitude 41.16 north, longitude 50.14 west, or not more than half a degree south of the point where the collision occurred. It seems improbable from this that the liner after the accident made much headway under her own steam.

It seems established that there were about 2,100 persons on the liner. This was the estimate of the line officials in New York, who gave the number of passengers as 1,320, the remainder of 860 making up the crew.