BBC NEWS | Americas | ‘Polite’ Britons died on Titanic –Tally ho!


He said that in testimonies from inquiries in America and Britain just after the event, there were a lot of statements from women saying their husbands put them on lifeboats.

They then “went to the back of the boat to have a cigar, to stand around and be chummy, while basically the boat went down.”

Mr Savage said: “There was one gentleman who was rather wealthy… who went back downstairs after he put his wife on the [life] boat… put on his tuxedo…went back upstairs and smoked… with the idea that if I am going die, I may as well die as a gentleman and well-dressed.”




  1. Angel H. Wong says:

    Evolution at work, the polite die out while the rude, selfish pricks thrive to live another day and reproduce.

  2. Mr. Fusion says:

    Polite or chauvinistic?

  3. LDA says:

    #1

    Said like a true eugenicist. The poor people died too. I hear Hitler had impeccable manners.

  4. Angel H. Wong says:

    #3

    The truth hurts ya.

  5. BigBoyBC says:

    I heard that Hitler was a wonderful painter…

    In fact he could paint an entire room in one afternoon… Two coats!

  6. Hugh Ripper says:

    Confucius says that a man who paints toilets is not necessarily a shithouse painter.

  7. RBG says:

    2 Mr. Fusion

    Mr Savage also concludes that social norms such as “women and children first” were very strong in British culture and survived in such an environment.

    CNN re Flight 1549
    “I just remember saying, ‘Women and children first,’ you know,” Kolodjay said.
    http://tinyurl.com/aq63ud

    Sexist pig.

    RBG

  8. Nimby says:

    BigBoyBC : plagiarism? Shame, shame. Good dancer, too.

  9. BigBoyBC says:

    Oh Nimby, don’t be silly…

  10. Glenn E. says:

    I have doubts about this so-called report. Like it’s doing so damage control for earlier ones. I don’t have the number handy. But I once read the percentages of survivors, group by their level of social order. You know. First Class, Second Class, Third Class (Steerage), and crew. And not too surprising a much larger percentage of the First Class passengers, got off the ship, compared to the other two Classes, and crew. I think it was the ships crew that did a little better than the Third Class passengers. But I suppose that skew could be explained as crewman were assigned to each lifeboat to steer them.

    Since the lifeboats were launched from the top deck of the ship. The First Class passengers had first crack at boarding them. As the others weren’t allowed up there. Not even in an emergency. So the lifeboats were either filled, or just dropping to hastily by, as the came down past to the lower decks. It was reported that some weren’t even fully manned. And yet this ship didn’t have enough lifeboats to waste a single spot not be filled. So don’t con us about the politeness of the English accounting for all those who died. Those elitists saw their honeys off, and didn’t lift a finger to help anyone below their social order. Oh yeah, real gentlemanly! That kind of behavior wouldn’t be vilified today. Just as your modern disaster movies always show rich and poor helping each other to survive. If they showed the rich getting saved first, and the poor mostly being left behind, such a movie would be panned. But here we are, nearly a century later. And such behavior is still being covered up and explained away.

    Though why anyone should care how their rich great grandfather is thought of, to skew the facts, is beyond me.

  11. bobbo says:

    Though why anyone should care how their rich great grandfather is thought of, to skew the facts, is beyond me. /// Why else except to continue the skewering? The rich have every reason in the world to keep the masses believing that fair accountability is class warfare. Thank the repuglican party for this continuing fantasy.

  12. mr. show says:

    #2

    Polite…chauvinistic…whatever. Women and children first is tradition (unless you’re that Captain of the Greek cruise ship who left his ship before the passengers). So the Brits in those days were quaint but perhaps they represent a strength of character missing these days (yah, character matters).

    Do you also get your panties in a wad when a gentleman (man) holds a door open for a lady (women/womyn)? Maybe precious feminists like Alan Alda do but for some of us it’s called manners and by no means represents the propagation of gender inequity.

    What say you Mr. Fusion?

  13. jimbo says:

    Now that nobody from the Titanic is around anymore, they can lie about it as much as they want…not that this is a lie, but we may see some interesting/BS things emerge about the titanic.

  14. jimbo says:

    #10

    none of us were there so we don’t know shit….It’s just a tragic story people like to dig up once in a while.

  15. mikeo says:

    This is why the movie Titanic was so irritating–it ignored the fact that many men were willing to die for women and children. I applaud their honor.

  16. Sinn Fein says:

    I’m surprised that ANY 3rd Class/Steerage passengers ever made it into lifeboats. Save the most successful since the poor are more easily replaced as cogs in the work force machine.

    A bad theory must have guided the passenger liner rule makers, especially with the Titanic. “What could possibly go wrong?” Which is almost as bad as what was said at the time, “God himself couldn’t sink the Titanic.” OY!

  17. Mr. Fusion says:

    #12, Mr. show,

    Maybe precious feminists like Alan Alda do but for some of us it’s called manners and by no means represents the propagation of gender inequity.

    You were making some sense up until that line.

    Manners do not need to promote gender inequality. Does it matter if my female boss holds the door open for me? Should I hold the door for a female subordinate? Well, frankly, it doesn’t matter. Who ever gets there first should hold the door for the others. Of course, that is really called “consideration”, which is a core ingredient of what we call “manners”.

    Should a “damsel” in distress receive any more assistance than some “smuck” in distress? No.

    Are women more inclined to understand “kitchen” and men more inclined to understand “car”? Actually, yes. Only because they have been streamed into that. We allow our daughter to find and play with her choice in toys. Inevitably she turned to those toys that stimulate her imagination. Her favorite Christmas gift was a Magic Set. The Wii was second. All her dolls reside in the corner.

  18. Kanjy says:

    🙁 Women and children first doesn’t mean that men should give up all the lifeboat seats to women and children, with men having the lowest seat priority. It means that men should help women and children onto the lifeboats, then board the boats.

  19. Billy Bob says:

    This reminds me of Japanese government research into why the Japanese mind is superior to that of foreigners.

    The researcher presents a little data to support his broad-brush conclusion that Americans are animals and Brits are civilized, instead proferring a few isolated anecdotes. Of course, that’s what passes for science in poli-sci and economics these days, so maybe I shouldn’t be so harsh.

  20. Omar R. says:

    Two mechanics go home after a long day of work.
    When they arrive, which one cooks dinner?

    Besides, men are less necessary from a reproductive standpoint.

    That’s why men do most of the dieing, earlier than the other gender.

  21. Nick Hunter says:

    Interesting story, but rubbish if you read it carefully. Obviously, David Savage, from Queenland University of Technology (?) is a renowned world expert according to the BBC.

  22. Michael says:

    Check out http://www.cruisingthepast.com which talks about polite Brits dying while pushing Americans living on the Titanic.


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