Page:Walker - An Unsinkable Titanic (1912).djvu/41



, that faithful, if over-appreciative chronicler, tells us that Dr. Johnson once described an ocean voyage as "going to jail with a chance of being drowned." Had some one quoted the grim witticism of the doctor in the spacious dining-room of the Titanic on the night of April the fourteenth, it would have provoked a smile of derisive incredulity. Going to sea in the cramped quarters of the frail sailing packet of Johnson's day was one thing; crossing the Atlantic at railroad speed in the spacious luxury of a 60,000-ton liner was quite another. Yet, five hours later, when the vast bulk of that noble ship was slanting to its final plunge, the pitiless truth was brought home to that awe-stricken crowd that, even to-day, travel by sea involves the "chance of being drowned."

The remarkable immunity of the high-speed Atlantic liners from such accidents as befell the [ 19 ]