WIFE OR CHILD?

Gisborne Times, Volume LXV, Issue 10305, 14 January 1927, Page 2

WIFE OR CHILD?

WHICH SHOULD HE HAVE SAVED. If both your wife and your six-year-old son were drowning and you could only save one of them, what would you do? This heartrending choice actually confronted a New Jersey man, Mr. Neil Johnson, He elected to save his son and his wife perished. The ethics of his decision are being widely discussed. Some declare excitedly that he did right, and that his duty to posterity was his first consideration.

Others as vehemently assert that common decency and the unwritten family law commanded that be save his wife.

For the rest Mr. Johnson is still unable to convince himself why lie made the desperate choice he did. Tho circumstances may lie told in a few words.

The Johnsons, accompanied hy three men friends, were out in a rowing boat on Silver Luke, New Jersey, shortly before sunset. Threatening clouds suddenly appeared in the skv, and Mr. Johnson started to pull for the shore when something happened—he does not know what. The boat capsized, and all six occupants were precipitated into the lake , the boat drifting rapidly away. - . Mr. ' Johnson discovered himself near his wife and son, and one of the three friends struggling in the water at some little distance, shouted to him: “Save one of them! We will trv to roach the other. The bov at that moment sank for the second time, and Mr. Johnson quickly grasned him and struck out for the shore. The three friends, however, were unable- to reach the wife before she .disappeared.