STILL INSISTS HE SAW CAPT. SMITH

Baltimore Man Tells How It Would Have Been Possible to Have Been Rescued
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Special to The Washington Herald
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Baltimore. Md., July 23---Still emphatic in his assertions that he saw Capt.
E. J. Smith, who is supposed to have been drowned in the Titanic disaster,
Peter Pryal, 907 Valley street, declared yesterday that he was sure the
commander of the ill-fated ship is alive and well in the employ of the White
Star Line. In explaining the way in which the captain might have escaped
death, Mr. Pryal said yesterday:

"The spot where the Titanic sank is not far from the place where I was cast
away myself in 1860 when I was sailing on the Allen liner Indian. The
captain, whose name was Smith also, mistook a light on Barren Island for
that of a ship and ran his vessel on the reef. We were lowered into boats and
reached the island. From there we were rescued by a number of fishing craft
and were eventually taken to Boston.

"It would have been an easy matter for Capt. Smith, of the Titanic, to have
gotten into a lifeboat attired as a passenger, and again, knowing as he did
the proximity of Barren Island, might have, under difficulties, of course,
made his way there and thence to Cape Sable.

"Whether or not he did this or was saved in another way, I do not know, but
I do know that he is alive and that I saw him. I would know him anywhere and
under any circumstances."

Mr. Pryal said yesterday that he believed that Capt. Smith was too sensible
a man to take his own life. He also said that the captain had a mania for
making speed records, as was shown in 1895, when, as captain of the
Majestic, he ran the vessel on a reef near Barren Island, on the northern
route. At the time Mr. Whitney, who was then Secretary of War, was a
passenger on the vessel with his daughter, and was emphatic in his criticism
of the commander.

Mr. Pryal, with his wife and two daughters, will leave Baltimore on July 31
for his new home in Green Spring, Va., where Mrs. Pryal will undergo an
operation.