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T. Stead; the writer Jacques Futrelle; the theatrical producer Henry B. Harris; President Taft’s military aide Archie Butt; the elderly philanthropist Isidor Straus and his wife, Ida. Also noted (but not named) were 31 personal maids and valets, just in case the ship’s army of stewards and stewardesses weren’t enough to satisfy every need.
    What makes the list even more intriguing today are certain inaccuracies and omissions. It included, for instance, the name of at least one man who wasn’t on board at all. Frank Carlson was an American visiting France who hoped to catch the Titanic home. Driving to Cherbourg in his own car, he had the misfortune to break down, and by the time repairs were made, he had missed the boat. But his name remained on the Passenger List, and later on the casualty list, when he failed to answer the roll call of survivors. Sixty years afterward his family was still trying to correct the error.
    Others were not on the Passenger List, but definitely on the Titanic. Mrs. Henry B. Cassebeer boarded the liner as a Second Class passenger. She was an impecunious young widow, but a very experienced traveler. Knowing that expensive cabins often went begging in the off-season, she visited the Purser’s Office. At the cost of a few pounds under the counter, she upgraded herself from Second Class to one of the best First Class staterooms on the ship.
    Flushed with success, she ran into Chief Purser McElroy a little later and playfully suggested that she be seated at the captain’s table. “I’ll do better than that,” McElroy gallantly replied. “I’ll have you seated at my table!”
    Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff Gordon were two other names missing from the Passenger List but definitely on the Titanic. For some reason they were traveling as “Mr. and Mrs. Morgan”—an odd decision, since Lady Duff Gordon was one of Society’s most important couturières and lived by publicity.
    More understandable was the decision of George Rosenshine and Maybelle Thorne to be listed as “Mr. andMrs. G. Thorne.” They were not married but traveling together, and in the Edwardian era, appearances were often more important than reality. Appearances also played a part in the case of “Miss E. Rosenbaum.” She was a fashion stylist, and it simply seemed better business to anglicize her name. So although listed correctly, she was generally known as Edith Russell, and that is the way she has come down to us in most survivor accounts.

    Three other passengers found it absolutely essential to travel incognito. They were professional cardsharps, hoping to make a maiden voyage killing. Obviously it was safer to use an assumed name; so George (Boy) Bradley was listed as “George Brayton”; C. H. Romaine as “C. Rolmane”; and Harry (Kid) Homer as “E. Haven.” There’s evidence that the well-known gambler Jay Yates was also on board, using the alias “J. H. Rogers.” Neither name appears on the Passenger List, but a farewell note signed by Rogers was later handed to a survivor on the sloping Boat Deck.
    One shady figure definitely not on the ship was Alvin Clarence Thomas, a con man later known as “Titanic Thompson,” who achieved a certain notoriety as a witness to the slaying of the gambler Arnold Rothstein in 1929. It was generally assumed that the alias came from Thompson’s having plied his trade on the Titanic, but this is not so—he was only nine at the time. Actually, the name was an appropriate reference to several disastrous plunges taken when the stakes were high.
    While the presence of this or that particular individual could be argued, there’s no doubt that a number of cardsharps were indeed on the Titanic , and in fact on almost every express liner plying the Atlantic at thetime. The combination of rich, bored passengers, easily made shipboard friendships, and the ambience of the smoking room provided the perfect climate for “sportsmen,” as the gamblers were politely called.
    The wonder is