A night to remember?

On this, this centenary of the sinking of the "Titanic" a few thoughts.  Of the first-class passengers, slightly over 60% survived.  In the second class, the figure was just over 40%.  Of those in third class, the survival rate was around 25%.  This is usually put forward as an example of "money talks" but in reality it had less to do with who people were and much more to do with where they were situated - those in first class would have had easy access to lifeboats, those in second class rather less so, and those in steerage would have had to find their way up through unfamiliar stairs and corridors to get on deck.  The greatest loss of life in percentage terms was amongst the crew.  Perhaps the most disturbing statistic is that although the lifeboats had a capacity of some 1200, only 700 or so survived - most of the boats were only partially full.    God forbid that any of us should ever find ourselves in such a situation - whether cowards or heroes, remember them in your prayers.