Stead had often claimed that he would die from either lynching or drowning. He had published two pieces that gained greater significance in light of his fate on the "Titanic". On 22 March 1886, he published an article titled "How the Mail Steamer went down in Mid Atlantic by a Survivor", wherein a steamer collides with another ship, resulting in a high loss of life due to an insufficient ratio of lifeboats to passengers. Stead had added: "This is exactly what might take place and will take place if liners are sent to sea short of boats". In 1892, Stead published a story titled "From the Old World to the New", in which a vessel, the "Majestic", rescues survivors of another ship that collided with an iceberg.