same boat, and we were slipped down into the water over the side of the liner, which was bulging out, the list being the other way. The boat struck the water, and after some seconds (it may have been a minute) I looked up and cried out, 'My God, the Lusitania is gone!'

"We saw the entire bulk, which had been almost upright just a few seconds before, suddenly lurch over away from us. Then she seemed to stand upright in the water, and the next instant the keel of the vessel caught the keel of the boat in which we were floating, and we were thrown into the water. There were only about thirty people in the boat, and I should say that all were stokers or third-class passengers. There may have been one or two first class; I cannot recall who they were.

"When the boat was overturned I sank fifteen or twenty feet. I thought I was gone. However, I had my lifebelt around me, and managed to rise again to the surface. There I floated for possibly ten or fifteen minutes, when I saw and made a grab at a collapsible lifeboat at which other passengers were also grabbing. We managed to get it shipshape and clamber in. There were eight or nine in the boat, all stokers except one or two thirdclass passengers.

"It was partly filled with water and in the scramble which occurred the boat was overturned, and once more we were pitched into the water. This occurred, I should say, eight times, the boat usually righting itself. Before we were picked up by the Bluebell six of the party of eight or nine were lying drowned in the bilge water which was in the bottom."

When asked what he thought the effect of the sinking would be on the United States, Mr. Kessler answered:

"That is a very serious question, and I hesitate to give an opinion on matters which are purely technical.

Still, it seems to me as a landsman, and one who has crossed the ocean a great many times, that the safety of the Lusitania lay in speed. We were in the war zone by 140 or 150 miles, and every moment that we dawdled at fifteen or eighteen knots was an increase of our risk of being torpedoed.

"Again, (and of course I merely make the comment,) I cannot understand why there were no destroyers or patrol boats about, as we certainly had been led to expect there would be when we reached the war zone.

"The ship was torpedoed at 2:05 P. M. My watch stopped at 2:30. It was 5 o'clock when I was picked up by the Bluebell, and it was 10 o'clock before we were landed in Queenstown."

CHARLES FROHMAN'S DEATH. [Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.] LONDON, May 10.-A highly interesttold tonight by Rita ing story was Jolivet, the actress, who stood calmly chatting with Charles Frohman and Alfred G. Vanderbilt during the last tense moments before the Lusitania sank. The three of them, together with G. L. S. Vernon, Miss Jolivet's brother-in-law, and Mr. Scott, who had come all the way from Japan to enlist, joined hands and stood waiting to face death together. Miss Jolivet said:

We stood talking about the Germans and the rumor which had gained currency that a man, obviously of German origin, had been arrested for tampering with the wireless. The story was that the man had been discovered at 1 o'clock in the morning a day or two before doing something to the wireless apparatus and had been immediately imprisoned. I did not see the man arrested, so I am not sure about the story's truth, but there were good grounds for believing it.

We determined not to enter the boats, and just a minute or two before the end Mr. Frohman said with a smile: "Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure that life gives us."

Mr. Scott fetched three lifebelts, one

My

for Mr. Vanderbilt, one for Mr. Frohman, and one for my brother-in-law. He said he was not going to wear one himself, and my brother-in-law also refused to put his on. I hear that Mr. Vanderbilt gave his to a lady, Mrs. Scott. I helped to put a lifebelt on Mr. Frohman. brother-in-law took hold of my hand and I grasped the hand of Mr. Frohman, who, as you know, was lame. Mr. Scott took hold of his other hand, and Mr. Vanderbilt joined the row, too. We had made up our minds to die together.

Then Mr. Frohman, in a perfectly calm voice, said: "They've done for us; we had better get out." He knew that his beautiful adventure was about to begin. He had hardly spoken when, with a tremendous roar, a great wave swept along the deck and we were all divided in a moment. I have not seen any of those brave men alive since. Mr. Frohman, Mr. Vanderbilt, and my brother-in-law were drowned. When Mr. Frohman's body was recovered there was the most beautiful and peaceful smile upon his lips.

VANDERBILT'S HEROIC END. [Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.] LONDON, May 9.-Two survivors of the Lusitania disaster have given testimony that Alfred G. Vanderbilt died heroically; that he went to death to save the life of a woman.

Thomas Slidell, a friend of Mr. Vanderbilt, who lives at the Knickerbocker Club in New York, and was traveling with him, told of the sacrifice first. Then tonight Norman Ratcliffe, who lives in Gillingham, Kent, and was returning from Japan, offered verification. Mr. Ratcliffe was rescued, after clinging to a box in the sea for three hours. With him was a steward of the Lusitania. He said:

This steward told me he had seen Mr. Vanderbilt on the Lusitania's deck, shortly after the ship was struck, with a lifebelt about his body. When the ship gave every indication that it would sink within a few minutes, the steward said, Mr. Vanderbilt took off his lifebelt and gave it to a woman who passed him on the

deck, trembling with fear of the fate she expected to meet. The steward said Mr. Vanderbilt turned back, as though to look for another belt, and he saw him no

more.

Telling of his last moments on the ship and his last sight of Mr. Vanderbilt, Mr. Slidell said:

I saw Alfred G. Vanderbilt only a few minutes before I left the ship. He was standing with a lifebelt in his hand. A woman came up to him, and I saw him place the belt around the woman. He had none for himself, and I know that he could not swim.

Only the day before we had been talking of a day and a dawn some years ago when we went down the bay at New York in his yacht and waited to welcome and dip our flag to the Lusitania on her maiden voyage. We saw the first and last of her. Vanderbilt, who had given largely to the Red Cross, was returning to England in order to offer a fleet of wagons and himself as driver to the Red Cross Society, for he said he felt every day that he was not doing enough.

KLEIN AND HUBBARD LOST. Oliver O. Bernard, scenic artist of Covent Garden, said:

Only one or two of the shining marks which disasters at sea seem invariably to involve have lived to tell the Lusitania's tale. Vanderbilt, the sportsman, is gone. Genial Charles Klein, the playwright, is gone. That erratic American literary genius, Elbert Hubbard, is gone, and with him a wife to whom he seemed particularly devoted. And Charles Frohman is gone.

Frohman's was the only body I could recognize in the Queenstown mortuary, and perhaps it will interest his many friends in London and New York to know that the famous manager's face in death gives uncommonly convincing evidence that he died without a struggle. It wears a serenely peaceful look.

Frohman must have found it more difficult for him to take his place in a lifeboat than any other man on the ship. He was quite lame, and hobbled about on deck laboriously with a heavy cane. He