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I write because the pen moves. -- Lora Clarke

IRENE NOT BUDGED; MAY STAY FOR WEEKS. Cargo Being Taken Off and Pulling Force Augmented for Further Trials. SIGHTSEERS ROAM SHORE. Wind Shifts Seaward and This May Give Stranded Line More Water—Passengers All Landed. Sayville, L.I. April 8 — The North German Lloyd liner Prinzess Irene still lies fast tonight in the grip of the sand bar she ran foul of off the Lone Hill station at 4 o’clock Thursday morning. Efforts to pry her loose, made throughout the day by the Merritt-Chapman tugs Relief and I.J. Merritt, proved futile. Her baggage was taken off this afternoon and a start made at removing the freight. Thus lightened, further trials will be made to free her.

In the course of the morning the northwest wind, which yesterday blew strong from shore, veered in the southeast, and by the time the first lighter appeared it was blowing hard, whipping up the water from out to sea. No danger to the ship is anticipated from the strong sea breeze, however, as she has sunk her four anchors, which will effectively withstand any further shoreward shove. In fact, the sea wind is looked upon by Lieut. William Atlee of the Coast Service and others as likely to help loosen the captive liner by raising the water about her.

Her ultimate freedom, however, may still be a matter of from one to two weeks. Little fear of her safety in the meantime is felt. The only note of uncertainty on this point was sounded early this morning by M. L. Dunbar, one of the United States Coast Inspectors. The wind was then blowing from the northeast. Inspector Dunbar pointed out that such a wind would tend to churn up the waters under the Irene’s bow, causing the sand there to shift, thus leaving both stern and bow clear, with the vessel’s beam resting on the imprisoning sand bar. The British tramp steamer Drumelzie, which grounded off Point o’ Woods in a similar position three years ago, buckled and broke up in the middle, he said. Other coast officials and old seadogs on Fire Island said the Irene was as safe as at her pier, and that neither shore nor sea winds could harm her.

About noon Capt. Peterssen sent a wireless request to Oelrichs & Co., the line’s agents, for lighters to take off the cargo. Her position, her commander added, was most favorable. In answer to the call, the first lighter towed to the vessel from New York hove in sight at 1 o’clock, and two hours later went away laden with the ship’s baggage. A second lighter made fast to her port bow at 4:20 o’clock and took aboard the first load of the fore hold cargo. It will take several days before the whole cargo is transferred. 

Meanwhile, as the ship lightens, efforts will be made at high tide each day to tug her free, the tugs Relief, A.J. Merritt, and the big ocean-going tug Rescue, which came from Norfolk today, standing by with the Government cutter Mohawk and derelict destroyer Seneca for that purpose. The Pier Superintendent of the line arrived from New York today. He said it would probably take three or four days to get the ship free.

Coast Inspector Albert Ketcham of Inwood went aboard the Irene this afternoon. He spoke to Capt. Peterssen, who, he said, seemed to worry greatly over the accident to his ship, but who was unable to account for it. The Captain refused to let reporters go aboard.

Inspector Ketcham gave it as his opinion that Capt. Peterssen steered fully one-half point too far north after leaving Nantucket Lightship. At that  point, 377 miles from Sandy Hook, said the Inspector, the Captain must have got his bearings at 6 o’clock Tuesday morning, and should have laid his course west by north. By steering too far north, he said, the vessel had gone nearly ten miles out of her course.

Peter Ritter, a United States Coast Surveyor, who has been working in New York Harbor this week, was ordered to the scene of the stranding by the Coast Survey. He measured off the distances this afternoon in order to chart the precise location of the Irene. She was just 3,994 feet from the flagstaff of the Lone Hill Life Saving Station, said he, and 364 yards from the high water line on the beach.

Hundreds of sightseers from this and nearby points continued to visit the beach all day. The life savers from the Lone Hill and Point o’ Woods stations patrolled the shore, though their assistance was no longer considered necessary, and the line stretched from the ship’s bow to the breeches buoy had been drawn in.

ALL THE PASSENGERS LAND. Irene’s Cabin Folk Ashore Early, Steerage Wait for Baggage. The North German Lloyd liner Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm, which had anchored at 1 A.M. yesterday off Robbin’s Reef with the 1,720 passengers she had taken from the Prinzess Irene, weighed anchor at 6 A.M. and proceeded to her pier at Hoboken, where the 235 cabin passengers  were landed. The 1,485 steerage passengers remained aboard until after noon, waiting until their baggage was brought from the Prinzess Irene. Then they were transferred to Ellis Island.

The only excitement aboard was among the steerage passengers, who were anxious that the second cabin hand baggage should not get mixed up with their own. The anxiety was shared by the second cabin passengers. The steerage passengers, being mainly Italians, all carried decorated cardboard valises, and the women had bundles so intricately done up that it was difficult to distinguish them from the babies as they all lay on the deck together. When the stewards saw the package move and then cries proceed from it they knew that it was a baby.

It was said by the steerage stewards that the Italians slept on their valises and bundles from the time the ship grounded on Thursday morning until they reached the pier yesterday. They appear to be indifferent to the welfare of their big baggage.

There were few friends to meet the passengers, as there had not been any definite report on Friday night as to the exact hour the liner would dock. The cabin passengers, who were fortunate enough to have received their baggage, were able to have it passed and get away quickly. 

As they came down the gangway the cabin passengers did not look as if they had been through a shipwreck. Their attitude was rather one of returning from a pleasure trip, where everything had been done very well. Every man and woman in the first cabin had nothing but praise for the well-disciplined manner in which the transfer had been handled on both ships.

William A. Webber of Nashville, Tenn., who had been abroad to study cotton and oil conditions in Asia Minor, said he was asleep when the Prinzess Irene went aground. The grinding noise woke him up, and then he felt two shocks as she hit the outer bar and glided over it to stick fast on the inner bar. “One man,” he said, “who had a cabin near mine, got up and knocked at the doors of his friends, exclaiming, ‘Wake up; the ship is aground!’ Sleepy voices replied: ‘Let her stay aground and go away!’”

Frank Hitch, an Englishman, said the vibration after the ship struck woke him up. “I thought that something had happened,” he said, “and I lay awake listening to see what followed. You know that after one has been on shipboard continuously for ten days one can lay in one’s berth and imagine that the ship is still going ahead. After thinking a few minutes I imagined that we were under way away and I dropped off to sleep and did not wake up till the breakfast bugle went.”

Late yesterday afternoon tugs were sent down to the Prinzess Irene with barges in tow to convey her cargo to Hoboken. She has only 900 tons of general cargo from Italy, chiefly consisting of macaroni, cheese, olive oil, spaghetti, wines and currants, which are light articles comparatively, and done up in small packages.

TRANSFER WITHOUT A MISHAP. Even the Newcomers Fairly Calm In an Unexpected Crisis. In steamship circles yesterday the manner and speed with which the 1,720 men, women and children were transferred from the Prinzess Irene to the Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm without a single mishap was the chief topic of conversation.

Owing to her firm position on the sandy bar, the Irene did not move any more than she would have done alongside her pier at Hoboken. A TIMES reporter stood on the quarterdeck aft by the starboard gangway for more than an hour on Friday afternoon watching the immigrants going down the long ladder to the tug. There was no scuffling among them. The only trouble the officers had was to get the men to go down without their big packages. In the beginning there was a little hysteria among the Italian women because they were afraid the first class passengers would all go first and they would be left behind.

Mrs. G. B. Stone, one of the first cabin passengers, who spoke Italian, including the Neapolitan and Sicilian patois, went among the steerage passengers and told them that the third class were to be taken off first. Dr. Ernesto Mensi, the Royal Italian Commissioner, did yeoman service with his country men and women on the lower deck, and said that he hoped Americans would realize how well the inexperienced immigrants have behaved in a crisis when there might reasonably have been some allowance for a little excitement. Educated persons who had traveled were well aware that there was no danger aboard the ship, but to the others the sight of the combers breaking eight to ten feet high on the beach within 900 feet of the ship’s bows was far from comforting.

There were plenty of willing hands on the tug to catch the passengers as they dropped from the gangway. There was only one thrill, and that was caused by a woman from Naples who shrieked so loud that every one thought her baby had fallen overboard. Instead, it was only a paper box containing a faded stray hat tied with pink ribbons that had evidently seen many summers. It was recovered and she smiled again. The single male immigrants, who had to go down a rope ladder forward to the waiting lifeboats, uttered a silent prayer to their patron saints before they essayed the climb. 

  An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision. --  James McNeill