Standing at the rail of the main deck of the ill-fated Titanic, Arthur Ryerson, of Gray's lane, Haverford, Pa., waved encouragement to his wife as the lifeboat in which she and her three children — John, Emily and Susan — had been placed with his assistance glided away from the doomed ship. A few minutes later, after the lifeboat with his loved ones had passed beyond the range of his vision, Mr. Ryerson met death in the icy water into which the crushed ship plunged.

  It is now known that Mr. Ryerson might have found a place in one of the first lifeboats to be lowered, but made no effort to leave the ship's deck after assuring himself that his wife and children would be saved.

  It was not until the Carpathia reached her dock that relatives who were on hand to meet the survivors of the Ryerson family knew that little "Jack" Ryerson was among the rescued. Day by day since the first tidings of the accident to the Titanic were published, "Jack" had been placed among the missing.

  Perhaps of all those who came up from the Carpathia with the impress of the tragedy upon them, the homecoming of Mrs. Ryerson was peculiarly sad.

  While motoring with J. Lewis Hoffman, of Radnor, Pa., on the Main Line, on Monday a week before, Arthur L. Ryerson, her son, was killed. His parents abandoned their plans for a summer pleasure trip through Europe and took passage on the first home-bound ship, which happened to be the Titanic, to attend the funeral of their son. And now upon one tragedy a second presses.

  Upon leaving the Carpathia Mrs. Ryerson, almost too exhausted and weak to tell of her experiences, was taken in a taxicab to the Hotel Belmont. With her were her son "Jack" and her two daughters, Miss Emily and Miss Susan Ryerson.

  The young women were hysterical with grief as they walked up from the dock, and the little lad who had witnessed such sights of horror and tragedy clung to his mother's hand, wide eyed and sorrowful.

  Mrs. Ryerson said that she and her husband were asleep in their staterooms, as were their children, when the terrible grating crash came and the ship foundered. The women threw kimonos over their night gowns and rushed barefooted to the deck. Master Ryerson's nurse caught up a few articles of the little boy's clothing and almost as soon as the party reached the deck they were numbered off into boats and lowered into the sea.

HARROWING AND TERRIBLE.

  Mrs. John M. Brown, whose husband was formerly a well-known Philadelphian, but now lives in Boston, described her experience on the Titanic as the "most harrowing and terrible that any living soul could undergo."

  "Oh, it was heart-rending to see those brave men die," Mrs. Brown said, half-sobbingly, after she had left the pier in a taxicab brought by her husband.

  Mr. Brown, for his part, said the days of agony which he had experienced, when the lists of Titanic survivors were altered, diminished and published incomplete, leaving him indecisive as to his wife's fate, was almost on a par what she had undergone.

  In contradiction to several other statements, Mrs. Brown declared that she saw no signs of panic or disorder on the Titanic and did not know until later that there had been shooting on board the vessel.

  "I was in my berth when the crash came," Mrs. Brown said, "and after the first shock when I knew instinctively that the vessel was sinking I was comparatively calm.

  "I had hardly reached deck when an officer called to me to enter a lifeboat. I did so, and saw the huge liner split in half, with a pang almost as keen as if I had seen somebody die."

  Mrs. Brown said that John B. Thayer, Jr., after jumping from the deck of the liner, clad only in pajamas, swam through cakes of floating ice to a broken raft. He was picked up by the boat of which Mrs. Brown was an occupant.

  Mrs. Brown said that it was about two hours after the Titanic sank that their boat came within sight of an object bobbing up and down in the cakes of ice, about fifty yards away.

  Nearing, they made out the form of a boy clinging with one leg and both arms wrapped around the piece of wreckage. Young Thayer uttered feeble cries as they pulled alongside.

LAD PULLED INTO LIFE-BOAT.

  The lad was pulled into the already crowded lifeboat exhausted. With a weak, faint smile, Mrs. Brown said, the lad collapsed.

  Women, who were not rowing or assisting in maneuvering the boat, by vigorous rubbing soon brought Thayer to consciousness and shared part of their scanty attire to keep him from dying from exposure. In the meantime the boat bobbed about on the waves like a top, frequently striking cakes of ice.

  Mrs. Brown said for several hours more they battled with the sea before help arrived.

  "It was a blessed sight when all saw the Carpathia heading in our din," she declared. "We had hopes that a ship would come to our rescue and all on board prayed for safe deliverance.

  "No one can realize our feeling of gratitude when the Carpathia hoved into sight. With increased energy the men, aided by the women, pulled on the oars. We were soon taken aboard. Young Thayer was hurried into the hospital on board the boat and was given stimulants and revived.

  "Three survivors died soon after; they were buried at sea. Mrs. Brown said that Mrs. John Jacob Astor, the wife of Colonel John Jacob Astor, who proved himself a hero, was also an occupant of her boat.

  "Mrs. Astor was frantic when she learned that her husband had gone with the Titanic, but between sobs said he died a hero," Mrs. Brown said.

  "The colonel kissed her and pushing his bride to the side of the ship told her to hurry to the lifeboats awaiting below.

  "Mrs. Astor refused to listen to her husband's entreaties until he assured her that he would follow on the next boat, although all the time he knew that he would sink."

  "The following horrors have never left me, day or night," Mrs. Brown continued.

DEAD BODIES OF BRAVE MEN.

  "I saw dead bodies of brave men float past the lifeboats. I heard the death cries of women and saw the terrible desolation of the wreck by dawn."

  In the boat with Mrs. Brown were her two sisters, Mrs. Robert Cornell, wife of Judge Robert Cornell, and Mrs. S.P. Appleton.

  They followed each other down the long, roughly constructed rope ladder, a distance of more than fifty feet, into the tenth lifeboat. All were thinly clad. They had retired for the night and were tumbled from their berths when the crash came.

  When the Titanic sank and the first news came of the disaster, there appeared in the list of first cabin passengers the name of "Washington Logue." Until J. Washington Logue, of Philadelphia, could be found to explain that he was not on the high seas, many of his friends feared that he had been on the Titanic.

  When he landed from the Carpathia, Washington Dodge, of San Francisco, was told how his name had been confused in the wireless reports from the Olympic. He said he congratulated Mr. Logue on having been no closer to disaster than this.

  Mr. Dodge, who is a millionaire; Mrs. Dodge and their four-year-old son, Washington Dodge, Jr., were among the first to land on the dock from the Cunarder. Mr. Dodge carried a life preserver of the Titanic as a memento.

  "Nearly all the passengers had retired when the crash came, about twenty minutes passed 10 o'clock," said Mr. Dodge. "The liner was struck on the starboard side, near the bow. The bow, it seemed, withstood the crash, but water rushed into several compartments at the same time."

  "There was complete order among the passengers and crew. We really didn't think there was any danger. We were assured that the ship would float and that there were plenty vessels in the reach of wireless to come to our aid if that should become necessary.

  "Then the sinking of the Titanic by the head began and the crew was ordered to man the boats. There was no panic. The officers told the men to stand back and they obeyed. A few men were ordered into the boats. Two men who attempted to rush beyond the restraint line were shot down by an officer who then turned the revolver on himself. I could see Mrs. Isidor Straus. She clung to her husband and refused to leave him.

FLOATED FOR FOUR HOURS.

  "We floated for four hours until we were picked up. Mr. Ismay left the Titanic on a small boat.

  "I did not see the iceberg. When we got into the boat she was gone.

  "As the Titanic went down, Major Archibald Butt was standing on the deck. I saw him."

  The body of one black coward, a member of the Titanic's crew, lies alone in the wireless "coop" on the highest deck of the shadowy bulk of what was once the world's greatest ship two miles down in the dark of unplumbed ocean depths. There is a bullet hole in the back of his skull.

  This man was shot by Harold Bride, the second wireless man aboard the Titanic, and assistant to the heroic Phillips, chief operator, who lost his life. Bride shot him from behind just at the instant that the coward was about to plunge a knife into Phillips' back and rob him of the life preserver which was strapped under his arm pits. He died instantly and Phillips, all unconscious at that instant that Bride was saving his life, had but a brief little quarter of an hour added to his span by the act of his assistant, and then went down to death.

  This grim bit of tragedy, only a little interlude in the whole terrible procession of horror aboard the sinking boat, occurred high above the heads of the doomed men and women who waited death in the bleak galleys of the decks.

  "I had to do it," was the way Bride put it.

  "I could not let that coward die a decent sailor's death, so I shot him down and left him alone there in the wireless coop to go down with the hulk of the ship. He is there yet, the only one in the wireless room where Phillips, a real hero, worked madly to save the lives of two thousand and more people."

NEW YORK PHYSICIAN'S ESCAPE.

  Miss Alice Farnan Leader, a New York physician, escaped from the Titanic on the same boat which carried the Countess Rothes.

  "The Countess is an expert oarswoman," said Dr. Leader, and thoroughly at home on the water. She took command of our boat, when it was found that the seamen who had been placed at the oars could not row skilfully. Several of the women took their places with the Countess at the oars and rowed in turns while the weak and unskilled stewards sat quietly in one end of the boat."

  "The men were the heroes," said Mrs. Churchill Candee, of Washington, one of the survivors, "and among the bravest and most heroic, as I recall, were Mr. Widener, Mr. Thayer and Colonel Astor. They thought only of the saving of the women and went down with the Titanic, martyrs to their manhood.

  "I saw Mr. and Mrs. Isidor Straus on the deck of the Titanic as I was lowered into one of the lifeboats. Mrs. Straus refused to leave the ship unless her husband could accompany her. They were on the top deck, and I heard her say she would not leave her husband. She went down with him as she had lived and traveled with him. Life without him did not concern her, seemingly. 'I've always stayed with my husband, so why should I leave him now? I'll die with him,' I heard her say.

  "Captain Smith, I think, sacrificed safety in a treacherous ice field for speed. He was trying to make 570 miles for the day, I heard. The captain, who had stood waist deep on the deck of the Titanic as she sank, jumped as the ship went down, but he was drowned. All of the men had bravely faced their doom for the women and children.

  "The ship settled slowly, the lights going out deck after deck as the water reached them. The final plunge, however, was sudden and accompanied by explosions, the effect of which was a horrible sight. Victims standing on the upper deck toward the stern were hurled into the air and fell into the treacherous ice-covered sea. Some were rescued, but most of them perished. I cannot help recalling again that Mr. Widener and Mr. Thayer and Colonel Astor died manfully.

TWO DISTINCT SHOCKS.

  "The ice pack which we encountered," explained Mrs. Candee, "was fifty-six miles long, I have since heard. When we collided with the mountainous mass it was nearly midnight Sunday. There were two distinct shocks, each shaking the ship violently, but fear did not spread among the passengers immediately. They seemed not to realize what had happened, but the captain and other officers did not endeavor to minimize the danger.

  "The first thing I recall was one of the crew appearing with pieces of ice in his hands. He said he had gathered them from the bow of the boat. Some of the passengers were inclined to believe he was joking. But soon the situation dawned on all of us. The lifeboats were ordered lowered and manned and the word went around that women and children were to be taken off first. The men stood back as we descended to the frail craft or assisted us to disembark. I now recall that huge Woolner Bjomstrom was among the heroic men."

  "The Philadelphia women behaved heroically."

  This was the way Mrs. Walter B. Stephenson, of Haverford, a survivor of the wreck of the fated Titanic, began her brief but graphic account of the disaster at her home in Haverford, which she reached on the special train that brought Mrs. John B. Thayer and others over from New York.

  Worn by hours of terrible uncertainty on the frail lifeboats in the open sea, almost distracted by the ordeal of waiting for news of those left behind on the big liner, Mrs. Stephenson bore herself as did the women whom she described heroically indeed.

  She told how John B. Thayer, Jr., fell overboard when the boats were launched, and how he was saved from the death that his father met, by the crew of the lifeboat. She described tersely, to linger sadly as she finished with the words, "But we never saw Mr. Thayer, Sr., at all."

OCCUPANTS OF THE SAME BOAT.

  Mrs. Thayer, Mrs. J. Boulton Earnshaw, of Mt. Airy, and Mrs. George D. Widener were occupants of the same boat that carried Mrs. Stephenson to safety, and, like Mrs. Stephenson, they witnessed the final plunge of the Titanic.

  "We were far off," said Mrs. Stephenson, "but we could see a huge dark mass behind us. Then it disappeared." That was all she could tell of the fate of those left on board.

  "Then it disappeared," she paused and her voice choked. "We weren't sure but what we might have been mistaken. A lingering hope remained until long after the Carpathia picked us up. Then the wireless told the terrible tidings. We were the sole survivors."

  Mrs. Stephenson wore the same dress that she hastily donned when the crash occurred. It was a simple gown of dark texture, showing the wear in its crumpled shape. Over it she had managed to throw a cape, and to the covering she clung, as if yet fearful of the icy blasts of the Northern Ocean.

  Conveyed in a taxicab to the Pennsylvania Railroad Station from the Cunard wharf, Mrs. Stephenson alighted, hastened across the train shed and into a waiting elevator. She walked unaided. Relatives who had rushed from Philadelphia to convey her in safety, were solicitous for her welfare, but she assured them that she was well.

  "And she is well," said T. DeWitt Cuyler, a director of the Pennsylvania Railroad who met the train. "She has borne up remarkably under the strain."

  "I was wakened in my cabin by the shock," Mrs. Stephenson began. "It was nearly 12 o'clock, but I cannot be sure. The shock was great, but not as great as the one I experienced in the San Francisco earthquake. I was staying in the St. Francis Hotel at the time of the earthquake. Even this terrible disaster cannot shake the memory of that night from my mind.

ASSURANCE OF NO IMMEDIATE DANGER.

  "I rose hastily from my berth and was about to hasten to the deck when my maid assured me that there was no immediate danger and that I would have time to dress. I put on this dress that I am wearing and threw a cape around my shoulders. Then went on deck.

  "Scarcely had I gotten out in the air when an officer ordered me to don a life belt. I returned to the cabin to buckle one around me. When I returned I heard the order to man the lifeboats. There was no disorder. The crew was under perfect discipline. Quickly and without any excitement I was lifted into a lifeboat. Beside me I found Mrs. Thayer, Mrs. Earnshaw and Mrs. Widener. Like myself they had no clothing except what they wore.

  "John B. Thayer, Jr., was with us. As the boat was lowered by the davits, he slipped and fell into the water; luckily he wore a life belt and was kept afloat until a sailor lifted him safely aboard. We never saw Mr. Thayer, Sr., at all.

  "As the boat pushed off from the ship Mrs. Widener collapsed. She was finally revived. The Philadelphia women behaved heroically. They stood up splendidly under the suspense, which was terrible. The sailors rowed our boat some distance away. We thought we saw the Titanic sink, but we couldn't be sure. Behind us we could see a dark shape. Then it disappeared. We despaired of any others being saved, but some hope remained until long after the Carpathia had picked us up. Then the wireless told the sad tale.

WAIFS FROM TITANIC RESTORED TO MOTHER'S ARMS.

  Lola and Momon, the little waifs; of the Titanic disaster, snatched from the sea and kept for a month in a big, strange land, were clasped in the arms of their mother Mme. Marcelle Navratil, who arrived in New York, on May 16, from France on the White Star liner Oceanic.

  Hurrying down the gangplank, after kindly customs officials had facilitated her landing, Mme. Navratil, who is an Italian, 24 years old, of remarkable beauty, rushed to Miss Margaret Hays, the rescuer of the two little boys, who, with her father, was waiting on the pier. They took her in a cab to the Children's Society rooms, and there she was reunited with her children.

  The little boys, four and two years old, were thrust into one of the last of the lifeboats to leave the sinking Titanic by an excited Frenchmen, who asked that they be cared for. A steward told him he could not enter the boat and he said he did not want to, but must save his boys.

  Arriving in New York on the Carpathia, Miss Hays at first could learn nothing of the children's identity, and she planned to care for them. Then developed another chapter of the weird story of the disaster in the ice fields. The Frenchman's body was recovered and taken to Halifax, where it was found that he was booked on the passenger list under the name of "Hoffman."

  Cable messages to France brought the information that Mme. Narvatil's husband, from whom she was separated, had kidnapped her children and said he was going to America. He often used the name "Hoffman." Photographs of the boys were sent to Mme. Navratil in France, and she identified them as her children.