'Only 868 Saved from the Titanic': New Orleans learns of the disaster

Survivors Of Marine Disaster Confined To Those On Carpathia. (Err)ant Liner Steaming at Rate of Eighteen Knots an Hour When She Struck Mountain of Ice That Sent Her to the Bottom--Shock of Impact Almost Demolishes Vessel. Decks Ripped Open and Torn and Sides and Bulkheads Split and Shattered From Bow to Almost Amidshipsin Mounting Jagged Ice Spur and Sliding Back From Her Position, the Ship Had Many Hull Plates Torn Out. Compartments Forward Speedily Flooded

St. Johns, N. F., April 16.From the steamship Bruce, bound for Sydney, the first detailed reports to-night of the sinking of the Titanic and the (chi)lling scenes attending her end.

The Bruce obtained her story of the disaster from wireless messages picked from several of the ships which had been in closest touch with the last (?)s of the mammoth White Star steamship, and which were afterward in zone of communication with the Bruces apparatus.

When the Titanic struck the mountain or ice that sent her to the bottom in four hours after the impact, she was steaming at the rate of eighteen (knot)s an hour. The shock almost demolished the proud vessel, which her (buil)ders and her captain had believed nothing could master.

Hitting the impenetrable ice mass fairly with her towering bows, the ship (was) almost rent asunder at the first blow. Her decks were ripped and torn, (?)sides and bulkheads were split and shattered as with the hammer of some (?)n from the bow to a point almost amidships.

MOUNTS JAGGED ICE; THEN SLIDES.

Her upper works and some of her boats were splintered, while a shower (of de)bris from her spars fell upon the decks like giant hail. Though the (ship) had struck the monster obstruction head on, as her bow rose clear of (the) water, smashed to an unrecognisable mass of bent and shivered steel, the (vess)el listed heavily to port and threatened to turn turtle before the recoil (?) of what was left of her proud form back to an even keel.

The Titanic had forced her giant bulk away up on a submerged spur of

iceberg, a phenomenon which is not infrequent in the, most disastrous (colli)sions with these ghostlike sentinels of the Banks. In mounting upon the (?)ed ice spur and in sliding back from her position the ship had torn out (man)y of her bulk plates from the amidships section forward to the bow.

COMPARTMENTS SPEEDILY FLOODED.

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'Only 868 Saved from the Titanic': New Orleans learns of the disaster