[Carbon copy, typewritten. "KILLED — 3 Feb '13 — BND" stamped diagonally in red across page 1. Editor's marginalia in blue pencil.]

THE IPHIGENIA INQUEST: QUESTIONS LEFT UNASKED

A feature by Klaus Dannemeyer, The Port Hume Beacon.

The Port Hume County Coroner has returned his verdict. The Iphigenia was lost to an act of God. The question this reporter has been unable to answer — and which, upon close reading of the twenty-six-page inquest record, he believes the Coroner also did not answer — is what the record itself does not contain.

Three surviving crew members were cross-examined in closed session. The motion to close the session was made by Mr. Charles Reddick on behalf of the Company and granted without opposition. The substance of their testimony is therefore unrecorded. [editor's margin: "reword — tendentious"]

One of those three is the cabin steward assigned to the captain's berth. This reporter has spoken with a person close to the inquest who states that the steward's deposition, taken in writing on the 4th of January, was not read into evidence. A copy has been retained by the Coroner's office and is, under county practice, subject to sealed treatment for seven years.

Mr. Owen Fazackerley's testimony on behalf of the underwriter identifies boiler failure as the proximate cause. The starboard boiler was inspected and certified by the Company's own engineer on the 12th of September, 1912 — eight weeks before the sinking. No independent survey of the surviving boiler fragments (portions of which have been recovered and are held at the Cadenza & Sons machine works, per a private arrangement) has been commissioned or, so far as this reporter can ascertain, permitted.

Three of the eleven widows this reporter has interviewed report that their husbands, in their last shore leave, spoke of the captain's condition in terms that will not bear printing.

Mrs. Zofia Malinowski, widow of Stanisław Malinowski (deckhand), has circulated a petition among the survivors of the crew and of the passenger families demanding a reopened inquest. Its signatories number fifty-eight as of this writing. [editor's margin: "cut"]

The Beacon has been unable, despite written request submitted on the 22nd of January, to obtain the Company's internal report on the grounding. Mr. Reddick, in correspondence, expresses regret that the report is "at this time in a condition unsuitable for release."

We print the foregoing not in accusation but in inquiry. If the Iphigenia was lost to the weather alone, the Beacon should be able to say so without reservation. At present it cannot.

[editor's final marginal: "Spike. Tell the kid to cover the Mayor's reception Wednesday."]