The Hickman courier., 1873-02-08
MARX TWAIN.


kno Ot0-E 4enlome0 LunArM Htcdne1ns
It is curious, self possessed, old
fashioned Company, the Cunard.
(Scotehmen they are.1 1t was born be-
fore the days of steamships; it inaugur-
ated ocean steamer lines; it never has
lost more than one vessel it has never
lost passengers life at all /; its ships are
never insured great merchantile firms
do not insure their goods sent over in
Cunard ships; it is rather safer to be in
their vessels than on shore. Old
thing is established by the Cunardcrs
it is there for good and all, almost,
Before adopting new thing the chiefs
cogitate, and cogitate and cogitate
thensthey lay it before their purveyor,
their head merchant, their head builder,
their head engineer and all the captains
in the service. and they go off and
eogitate about year; then if the new
wrinkle is approved it is adopted and
put into the regulators, In the old
days, near forty years ago, whom this
was an ocean line of sailing vessels,
corpses were not permitted by the
company to take passage, or go as
freight, either-sailor superstition, you
know Very well !: to this day they
won't carry corpses. Forty years ago
they always had stewed prrlnes and rice
for dinner on duff" days; well, to
this present time, whenever duff day
comes around, you viii always have
your regular stewed prunes and rice in
Cunarder. If you don't get any thing
else, you can always depend On that
and depend on it with your money up,
too, if you are that sort OF person.
1T takes them about Ten or fifteen I
ses,ara n, .rnan,, -: =. J,
ss6 s.:e7 re- ..+,<..s-ei'e1aal' Al !
to suit at last they havef1T1 confidence
in him. The only order they give a
captain is this, brief and to the point
Your ship isloaded, take her; speed
is nothing follow your own road,
deliver her safe, bring her back safe
safety is all that is required"
The noted Cunard Company is com
posed simply of two or three grand
children who have stepped into the
shoes of two or three children who
stepped into the shoes of couple of
old Scotch fathers for Burns and
MacIvor were the Cunard Company
when it was born it was Burns and
MacIvor when the originators had
passed away; it is Burns and MacIvor
still in the third generation-never has
been out of the two families Burns
was Glasgow merchant, MacIvor was
an old sea-dog who sailed ship for him
In early times. That vessels earnings
were cast into sinking fund with the
money they built another ship, and
then another, and thus the old original
packet line from Glasgow to Halifax
was established. At that time the mails
were slowly and expensively carried in
English Government vessels. Burns & |
MacIvor and Judge Halliburton (.'Sam
Slick fell to considering a scheme of |
getting the job of carrying these mails
in private bottoms In order to manage |
the thing they needed to be quiet about |
it, and also they needed faster vessels
Halliburton had relative who was not /
a shining success in practical life, but I
had an inventive head name, Cunard
he took his old jack-knife and shinQle
and sat down and whitfield ont this
enormous Royal Mail Line OF vessels
that we call the Cunarders-a great
navy, it is-doing business in every
ocean owning forty-fve steamships of
vast cost conducting its affairs with
the rigid method and system of
national navy, promoting by merit,
priority In routine, and for cons spicuous
service using a company uniform
retiring superanumated and disabled
men and officers on permanent pensions,
and numbering its servants by hundreds
and thousands. In its own private
establishment in Liverpool it keeps
1000 men under pay. That is what
Sam Cunard whitfield out. That is to
say, he Whitfield out little model for
fast vessel it was satisfactory; he was
instructed to go and get the mail con-
tract, simply under his own name he
did it, and the company became COM
monty known as the Cunard Company
then the Company tried steam, and
made it work; they prospered, and
fought out Halliburton, and also Gun
ards little interest; they removed
Cunard To England and made him their
London agent he grew very rich and
unspeakably respectable, and when he
died he died not as a poor, dreaming
provincial whittier of experimental
models, but as the great Sir Samuel
Cunard, K G. B., or G. ". X, or
something like that, for the Sovereign
had Knighted him.
Well, the Cunard Company is great
and has got more money
than you and both put together and
vet none of the family ever write
editorials or deliver lectures. The
Company have built school-houses and
they educate the children of their en-
ployes they are going to build dwell
ings for their .shoremen that shall be
cheap and clean and comfortable when
one of their men dies. asubscriptioh list
goes about in his ship or in whatever
arm of the service his name is booked,
and whatever sum is raised the Cunard
Company add just similar sum, and it
sll goes to the mans heirs. Their
ss;stem of pen5i 5iSSSu<unxa xaqcF >esarzs,. L
, But have never bssffsss,, urss Il A 1z.aa9s n
for all this; am not even acquainted
with member of the Cunard Company.
1 think will wait awhile before / go
cramps my hand towrite SO much
ON stretch. But it is all right, any
way. So many thousand of Americans
have travelled In those steamers that
they viii like to read about that Com
pany.
Sabbath Day Suggestions.
1t is dangerous for the feeble brain of
man to wade far into the doings of the
NIoak ITsl-L .--I,l,.., aIII--.--l, - 1