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Updated: May 27, 2025
When the old clipper ship took from four to six weeks to cross the Atlantic, a weekly paper was printed. On some of the swift liners of to-day on the fourth day out a paper is issued, when perhaps the steamer is "rolling in the Roaring Forties." The sheet is a four-page affair, about six inches wide and nine inches long.
All the great liners of the present day may justly be styled ocean palaces, as far as luxuries and general appointments are concerned, but as the Mauretania and Lusitania are best known, a description of either of these will convey an idea to stay-at-homes of the regal magnificence and splendors of the floating hotels which modern science places at the disposal of the traveling public.
Similarly, on the seas, the disasters to the Ville du Havre, to the Oregon, and, only three years ago, to the Elbe, show the terrific results of collision, to which every ship crossing the ocean is liable. Collisions between vessels less known than those named are of weekly occurrence. Yet no general outcry is raised against the general safety of the transatlantic liners.
Indeed it had only been discovered by Captain Cook twenty-eight years earlier in 1768. The Duff was a small sailing-ship such as one of our American ocean liners of to-day could put into her dining saloon. "What cargo?" The question came again from the officer on the man-o'-war. "Missionaries and provisions," was Captain Wilson's answer. The man-o'-war's captain was puzzled.
He pictured himself shipping as third engineer at the Manihiki Islands or engaged for taking moving pictures of an aeroplane flight in Algiers. He had to get away from Zappism. He had to be out on the iron seas, where the battle-ships and liners went by like a marching military band. But he couldn't get started. Once beyond Sandy Hook, he would immediately know all about engines and fighting.
Since his time so many gifted writers have attempted to do the same thing that on the large Atlantic liners the bowsprit has been removed, or at any rate a notice put up: "Authors are requested not to lie prostrate on the bowsprit." But even without this advantage, three or four generations of writers have chronicled with great minuteness their sensations during the transit.
I started eastward the next morning, arriving in New York in time to catch one of the big liners sailing for Havre. On my way across the continent I decided to send a cable to Maude at Paris, since it were only fair to give her an opportunity to reflect upon the manner in which she would meet the situation.
There have also been added to the operating naval forces by purchase, charter, etc., many hundred vessels of commercial type, including all classes from former German transatlantic liners to harbor tugboats and motorboats for auxiliary purposes. Last year the construction of capital ships and large vessels generally had been to some extent suspended.
The shipping posters of New York, showing stately liners too lofty even to notice the Atlantic, were arguments good enough for steerage passengers, who do, I know, reckon a steamer's worth by the number of its funnels; but the pictures did nothing to lessen my regard for that dark outer world I knew.
"If I'd sent her sooner, the Conference would have knocked me out," Cartwright rejoined. "I'd have got nothing but low-rated stuff the liners didn't want. One must run some risks." The other nodded. "That is so, when shareholders must be satisfied. Well, I expect I'm lucky because my partner's a good sort. When you needn't bother about other folk's greediness, you can take a cautious line.
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