The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1886-10-19
steeriSe PSoits-The Tramps of the Sea.
S2&.Soo,o BOO Spent Abroad Yearly by
Americans-Ensiish Railway Peculiari-
ties-The Penny Versus the Dollar.
IyIAN STEAMER, CITY OF RICHMOND,

ties-The Penny Versus the Dollar.
IgnAN STEAMER, CITY OF RICHMOND,
ATLANTIC OCEAN, 375 MILES
FROM QUEENSTOWN, Sept
/ am writing this letter in the cabin Of
big ocean steamer. My light comes from a
little round portfolio the size of tin wash
basin and the cabin is OF the size of 6x1O
hall bedroom My only furniture is a camp
stool, a sofa and two beds whish run along
the wall like the berths of sleeping car, one
above another. at the back of the room
there is stationary washstand, and over this
12x14 inch looking glass in a walnut frame.
The iron ceiling of this room is about seven
feet from the floor. 1t is studded with the
heads of rivets as big an old-fashioned
cent, and, Ike the rest of the room, is painted
white. A silk portiere swings to and fro in the
breeze from its brass rod over the door, and
the color of this, like that of the curtains of
my little round window, are crimson. A
piece of brussels carpet covers the floor, and
an electric button at the side of the door
will-bring me servant at the touch Of my
finger. take my three full meals day in
dining saloon as large as that OF a good
sized hotel, and 1 have a promenade walk
about the upper deck seventeen times of
which makes just one mile. My company is
made up of eighty ladies and gentlemen and
boys and girls of all ages, compilations and
sizes, from the little 1S-months-old baby, who
is going to Belfast with her grandfather, a
member of the Produce Exchange Of New
York, to the stiff, gray haired supreme court
judge of Connecticut, who is about to visit
his son, the consular clerk at Liverpool.
Then there is the population of the second
cabin, who have quarters below us in the
stern of the boat, and the hundreds in the
steerage, who are below OH the other side
near the prov. All classes seem to be happy.
We have had no rough weather, though we
are now beginning our ninth day at sea, and
the time, with reading, chatting, walking,
sleeping and eating, flies as fast as it does on
Shore Tomorrow we win be at Queenstown,
and the day following the ship will lie in the
docks at Liverpool.
Ocean travel is rapidly changing, and the
steamboat Is improving as fast as the railroad
train The first ocean steamer was built
near New York in 1919, and she made a trip
across the Atlantic one year later. She was
named the Savannah; she was of $50 tons
burden, and when she came into Liverpool,
after "A passage of twenty-five days. she was
the wonder of all the world The big ocean
steamship of to-day is of from 4 600 to 5000
tons, and she makes her passage from New
York to Queenstown in from six days and a
few hours TO twelve or thirteen days Some
shipowneTs now assert that the passage
across the Atlantic will soon be made in four
days, and the engineer of this vessel tells me
tisib iGSi - luily dS SAFE, tuOue,H
more expensive, than slow travel. The coal
consumed by the seven days steamers is
nearly three times much rs that consumed
by the tan days steamers, and fuel is one of
the ia,ge& items in the cost of steamship
travel Some of the fast Cunard steamers
burn $40 tons of coal day, whereas the City
of Ric..-n1 md, OF about the same size, but
ten days steamer, requires only from 100 to
10 tons per day. 1t costs about IS ton
t.I I.rtx-f
the ships engines, so that the difference be-
tween the seven days and ten days steamers
in the cost of coal alone is over 81 600 per
day.
Can you appreciate how much 800 tons of
coal n day means. Fifteen tons of coal is a
yearly allowance for n small family in an
eight-room house The daily consumption of
the Etruria would keep twenty such families
for year and the 800 tons which this ship
carries on each trip, would more than supply
a village of eighty families for that time.
The coal used here IL slack. 1t is stored in
great vaults and fifty-four men are required
to put it in the furnaces. The ship has twenty
seven furnaces, each of which is as big around
a ton of hay on the farmers wagon and
about twice as long. They are away down in
the bottom of the ship, and as 1 crept in and
out among them yesterday, by the aid of the
chief engineer and his lantern, and saw the
blaze of their entrances, felt the consuming
heat OF their surroundings and talked with
the swcaty, sooty men who were kept at
them all day choveling coal, Dante's Inferno
did not seem very far off and Hades was per-
soniied before me.
The faster steamers have 100 men to attend
to their furnaces. They must be kept going |
night and day and the labor is very hard. |
The furnaces are 50 hot that the men must |
drink great quantities Of water, and here |
they mix the water with oatmeal and each |
man consumes gallons daily. This is neces- |
sary to keep up the perspiration. In such
heat il n man cannot sweat he will Gh.
This immense cost OF coal in the great |
ocean steamers has given rise to class Of /
cheaper steamers, which Mr. Shangleur,
leading cotton shipper of Georgia, tells me |
are known as the "tramps Of the sea-" They |
are cutting the life out of the carrying trade |
of the more expensive lines, and have made /
freight rates materially lower. These boats /
are iron shells with just enough machinery /
and furnishing to run them They do not /
carry passengers, and they can get along on |
about twenty tons of coal day. They have
crews of from twelve to twenty hands to run
them, and they will go anywhere to get
cargo, and will carry it any place il paid for /
it. 1t used to be that cotton shipped to Eng |
land had to be arranged for as to carriage long |
beforehand Now the ocean steamers will |
take it at any time. Ii they do not the ship |
per has only 70 telegraph Tor one OF these sea |
tramps, and he will come and take it for him |
at rs low a rate and under as good insurance |
rs the great lines. These sea tramps don't |
care where they so so they have a cargo |
To-day they may land at Liverpool with a |
ship load of cotton and wheat, and next week |
he sailing out from England with supplies for |
the Congo valley. They are owned, l am told, |
by responsible parties, and can make money |
on freight rates which would ruin the Cunard, |
the Inman the White Star.
Freight rates are now very low, and few of i
the big steamships lines are making money.
Cotton is taken to Europe for little over IS |
a bale or less than one cent pound, and the /,
freight of bacon is not much over IS ton.
This ship carries great quantities of fresh
meat and cheese, and is has refrigerators
which will carry 400 tons or SOC, goo pounds Of