"Her engineers," said Mr. Lincoln,
"say the starboard wheel then was rushing around rapidly. Then the boat
must have struck the upper point of the pier so far back as not to
disturb the wheel. It is forty feet from the stern of the Afton to the
splash door, and thus it appears that she had but forty feet to go to
clear the pier. How was it that the Afton with all her power flanked over
from the channel to the short pier without moving one foot ahead? Suppose
she was in the middle of the draw, her wheel would have been 31 feet from
the short pier. The reason she went over thus is her starboard wheel was
not working. I shall try to establish the fact that the wheel was not
running and that after she struck she went ahead strong on this same
wheel. Upon the last point the witnesses agree, that the starboard wheel
was running after she struck, and no witnesses say that it was running
while she was out in the draw flanking over."
Mr. Lincoln read from the testimonies of various witnesses to prove that
the starboard wheel was not working while the Afton was out in the
stream.
"Other witnesses show that the captain said something of the machinery of
the wheel, and the inference is that he knew the wheel was not working.
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