S. V. Silverthorne of St. Louis. was one of the three or four saloon passengers on the Titanic who saw the deadly iceberg just after the collision.

"I was in the smoking room reading near a bridge whist game at one of the tables," he said. When the crash came I said: 'We've hit something,' and went out on the starboard side to look. None of us was alarmed. It occured to me that we might have bumped some small craft.

"I went back in the smoking room with the others. One of the bridge players had not left the smoking room at all and was waiting impatiently for the others to come back and resume the game. They returned and took up their hands and we were all about to settle down when an officer ordered us on deck and told us to get into the boats.

"There not being enough women on deck to fill the first ones we did not 'like the idea of leaving the ship then but did as we were told.  Had we been in our rooms we would have had to stand aside as other men did then."