lling at their ease in steamer
chairs and making pools on the daily runs of the steamship. The smoking
rooms and card rooms had been as well patronized as usual, and a party
of several notorious professional gamblers had begun reaping their usual
easy harvest.

As early as Sunday afternoon the officers of the Titanic must have known
that they were approaching dangerous ice fields of the kind that are
a perennial menace to the safety of steamships following the regular
transatlantic lanes off the Great Banks of Newfoundland.

AN UNHEEDED WARNING

On Sunday afternoon the Titanic's wireless operator forwarded to the
Hydrographic office in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and elsewhere
the following dispatch:

"April 14.--The German steamship Amerika (Hamburg-American Line)
reports by radio-telegraph passing two large icebergs in latitude 41.27,
longitude 50.08.--Titanic, Br. S. S."

Despite this warning, the Titanic forged ahead Sunday night at her usual
speed--from twenty-one to twenty-five knots.

CHAPTER IV. SOME OF THE NOTABLE PASSENGERS

SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN AND WOMEN ON BOARD, INCLUDING MAJOR ARCHIBALD
BUTT, JOHN JACOB ASTOR, BENJAMIN GUGGENHEIM, ISIDOR STRAWS, J. BRUCE
ISMAY, GEORGE D. WIDENER, COLONEL WASHINGTON ROEBLING, 2D, CHARLES M.
HAYS, W. T. STEAD AND OTHERS

THE ship's company was of a character befitting the greatest of all
vessels and worthy of the occasion of her maiden voyage. Though the
major part of her passengers were Americans returning from abroad, there
were enrolled upon her cabin lists some of the most distinguished
names of England, as well as of the younger nation. Many of these had
purposely delayed sailing, or had hastened their departure, that they
might be among the first passengers on the great vessel.

There were aboard six men whose fortunes ran into tens of millions,
besides many other persons of international note. Among the men were
leaders in the world of commerce, finance, literature, art and the
learned professions. Many of the women were socially prominent in two
hemispheres.

Wealth and fame, unfortunately, are not proof against fate, and most
of these notable personages perished as pitiably as the more humble
steerage passengers.

The list of notables included Colonel John Jacob Astor, head of the
Astor family, whose fortune is estimated at $150,000,000; Isidor Straus,
merchant and banker ($50,000,000); J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of
the Interna