["The Waratah", The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA), Monday 16 February 1914, page 7]
THE WARATAH.
A BOGUS MESSAGE.
(From our Special Correspondent.)
London, January 16, 1914.
What satisfaction any human being in possession of his senses can find in manufacturing messages puporting to be from people in dire peril of their lives at sea, and setting such messages adrift in bottles or cans is beyond the comprehension of the average man or woman. But there are creatures in every civilised land who appear to get some pleasure out of this silly pastime. The loss of the ill-fated Lund liner Waratah has produced quite a crop of these bogus bottled messages from the dead. The latest to be noted by the papers came by cable from the Cape. It was stated that a bottle containing a message from a passenger on the Waratah had been picked up off Bird Island. The message, dated September 6, 1909, was to the effect that the ship was rolling so badly that she was in imminent danger of capsizing, and that the captain was going to heave to, and the finder of the bottle was requested to send the message to the writer's wife, Mrs. John N. Hughes, at 4, Redcliffe-street, South Kensington, London.
Whether there was, or was not, any such person as John B. Hughes in board the Waratah on her fatal voyage is not known for certain, but the fact that no person of the name of Hughes has lived at 4, Redcliffe-street, during the past 12 years has been proved beyond all reasonable doubt. The present occupant of No. 4 has lived there for three years. Prior to that the house stood empty for two years, after having been occupied by Lady Fitzgerald for about seven years, and Mr. Cox, who stayed at the house during the whole period of Lady Fitzgerald's tenancy, states most positively that no one of the name of Hughes was known there at that time. Moreover, a member of the firm of Messrs. Rogers, the agents who have the letting of the property, states that the firm have no record at au of any person of the name of Hughes having an connection with the house. The tenant of No. 6 stated that she had a vague recollection of a Mme. Hughes in business some years ago in the West-End as a dressmaker, who lived at 2, Redcliffe street, but enquiries at that number disclose the fact that the present tenant came there several years before the loss of the Waratah, and had never heard of Mrs. Hughes, aid the previous tenant of No. 2 certainly did not bear that name. Enquiries at other houses in the street and from local tradesmen also failed to produce any facts in support of Mrs. Hughes' residence in Redcliffe-street. Moreover, in spite of the wide publicity given to the Cape Town story, no person has come forward to claim relationship with John N. Hughes, so doubts as to the genuineness of the message may be reasonably entertained by the most credulous persons. The rest of us will probably decide offhand that the message is a bogus one, and allow ourselves to entertain for a few minutes a desire to kick the person responsible for it.
