New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-04-25
DEsrRUCr1oN OF STEAMBOATS,.


since such deplorable loss Of life ha
occurred, so sudden and so unexpected
twill never, perhaps, be known what han'
cut the hawsers and launched two of tn
burning boats with their freight Of human
beings, leaving them to the chances of fir
and drowning. The event, however, mus
. have great effect upon the mode o
, travel, and incidentally against our navi
CATION by river packet boats. There wer
E for many years annual losses by tn
various casualties to which passenge
boats were liable. Snags, collisions
steam exp losions and fires have sent hun
dreds to eternity without warning or pre-
paration. Men wondered why travel was
unintermitt ed, and why with an apparent
peril before their eyes, the public woulo
ship its women. children and othel
precious com modities by mode Of
transportation so precarious. The OBJ
vious reason was that it was the
most comfortable and quickest mode
known. Indeed, the attractions OF
society, opportunities of amusement OF
of occupation, the entire comfort Of a
good table, good bed, with many facili-
ties of first class hotel, prevented pas
sengers fro m seeing the dangers of their
position. The cosy stateroom, with its
carpets, furniture, with the trunks and
boxes of tho p passengers, was charming
contrast to the horrid stage coach or the
weary ride on horseback. Could the lady
or gentleman passenger, however. have
looked through the intervening plank,
and seen six or seven heavy furnaces
glowing beneath, or noted the angry
| steam as it passed from the escape pipe,
or cracked at the struck gauges; had
they known bars that touched the
bow, or the snags that grazed the
hull, or seen the black and sullen river
revealed in the broad stripes of light that
glared from the fires below. it would have
impressed the most thoughtless with the
singular risk Of the voyage. 1t would
have excited the admiration for the pilot
that guided, the engineer that impelled,
the captain that governed that vessel.
1t would have convinced them that to take
steamboat twelve hundred miles
against the current Of the Mississippi,
through the shifting channels and sunken
risks, required uncommon courage,
knowledge and fidelity, while to avoid
explosion and fire in the light vanished
structure which rose above the fires,
and the many combustible materials
stored beneath it, needed a vigilance
greater and more continuous than almost
any form of property risk whatever. We
have only to picture to ourselves a first |
class river steamer under way at night,
with the light streaming from every open
ing, the fires glowing in every furnace
the steam kissing from every aperture,
with every soul on board asleep except |
the officers, the men and the gamblers,
and we have the risks of river navigation |
fully before us.
What was the public to do: The Amer
lean public could not stay at home. They
moved before the war in some thousand
steamboats,, great and small, with a popu-
lation aAoat numbered by thousands.
The railroad appeared. Ridiculed at
first as a rival of the rivers, it grew
steadily until it ran along the margin of
the rivers, and across the rivers. Then
came the sleeping and parlor cars, close
and through tickets. Then
came the substitution of hours for days of
transit. Then instead of taking a
steamer for Cincinnati or Wheeling, in
ten, twelve, or even fifteen days to New
York, or embarking on the coast
steamers whose calamities are far more
hopeless than those Of the river, the
passenger takes a sleeping car which will
larry him in three and half days, or
wen less, aad at about the same price as
" water.
Is it then strange that under the COM
petition of rail our river palaces have
leclined in value and in revenue? Is it
wonderful that with the steam tow carry
ng freights with less movement, and the
ailroads offering superior speed and
afety, the splendid succession of vessels
,hich once conducted the travel and
reight movement between New Orleans
nd the upper Cities has ceased to draw
very body to the levee to witness their
rival and departure? Not at all. They
ut yield to the law of progress. First :,
he barge tracked and cordelled from New
rleans to Louisville in one hundred and
venty days. The horseman or returning
atboatman, plodding through the wilder =
ess in twenty or thirty days, if not am
lshed and killed by the Indians or the y
Murrell gang" Then the steamboats,, in II
velve days between the same points;
ZEN the Lee and Natchez with their rapid u
ID peerless speed Of five or six days, and o
en- the Pullman car. in thirty hours n
tween the same points. u
We condole sincerel y with those who al
we lost property and business employ 81
ent by this latest calamity, and sorrow u
tn the friends of those who have been q
suddenly and unexpectedly hurried l.
to the dread future; but the loss of those u
ats, even with the safety of the port, e.
IL have its effect upon the travelling pub ~
(, and will add to the growing tendency o.
travel by rail instead of by water. It ot
nrohahla that tho river characterization, | "