The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1888-05-31

| Rev. DIR. Fisk's letter from Liverpool, for
| few lines more of it. He says:
The Roscoe is fine ship and the commander
Captain Delano is not only an excellent command
er and navigator, but he is gentleman of inteli
gencc and pcliteness. He gave universal satsfac
ton to the passengers and is certainly entitled tt
our Warmest Acknowledgements. The subordinate
officers were also fine men, the crew excellent, tht
servants remarkably active and attentive to oul
sages of the New York packet ships, undoubtedly
is the unweaIied and incessant attention that il
pad to the management of the ship. Every veer
ing and varying breeze is not only noticed when il
comes. bat it would seem is anticipated also st
that nothing is lost. We had il pleasant
compan! of twenty five in the cabin, besides about
forty in the stceragc.
Dr. Fisk describes the luxury of his state
room, ''the white lace drapery of the bed" etc
much As my venerable friend described it in his
letter. After seven hundred pages devoted tC
his two years OF European experience, DR.
Fisk gives an account of his voyage home. be-
ginning: 1T was our good fortune to take
passage in our old and tried se;i-boat, the
Roscoe. with our old and tried commander
Captain Deano We had also a kind and, on
the whole. very pleasant company of cabin
passengers"
soon after DR.. Fisk left Liverpool and began
his travels with Mrs. Fisk, in Europe. their
fellow-travellers were James HARPER ESD and
his wife-onc of the four who had founded
the publishing house of Harper Il Brothers, a
few years before. and who, Il few wears later.
was mayor of New York. Without having
mentioned them before. DR.. Fisk leaves the i'll
ference that Mr.. and Mrs. Harper also had
been Captain Delano's Passengers.
The pleasures Of stage-coach travel have been
revived in the past few wears by the coaching
clubs of New York and few other cities.
Last summer four-hor>e concord coach
started from an uptown hotel in New York,
loaded inside and on top with party of ladies
and gentlemen. They brcakfasted and chang
ed horses at a town in New Jersey. They took
relays Of fresh horses every ten or fifteen miles.
and reached the appointed hotel in Philadelphia
III time for tea. on the time-schedule of the New
ork and Philadelphia mail coach. sixty years
ago. Likewise there may he. within few
wears. revival of sail voyages across the At
iantlc. Iii ships having nothing more or less
than the comforts and beauties of the historic
Roscoe. Even if electric wires from state
rooms to the stewards room should be prefer
red to speaking tubes would it be a more eX-
pedltlou> way of communicating ones wants !!
The private steam yacht>-as large As many
passenger >teamers-that carry their wealthy
owners and few friends on sea voyages have
the same unpleasant features that passenger
steamers have: and | have been told by some
who have tried it that the selcctne>s of the par
tIclpation i'll such voyages is quite too close for
Il good wholesome companionship for very
many days 1t might not he difficult to make
up ships company of agreeable people. by
proper selections of applicants from among
the public. without narrowing it down 10
lert party of somebody's friends; and it would
be more practical financially. 1t is not sup
posed that the old-tiMe transatlantic sailships
gave unmNed delights to the passengers at all
times. and we all know the steamships do not
But taking them As they Were. 1.-THE Slow-goins
stage coach and sailing tub of our fathers are
likely to become known again for their in
trin>ic pleasures.
! have mentioned sailing passages between
New York and Liverpool in thirteen, fourteen
and in nine and a half days, in the eighteen
hundred and tftes. and of sixteen to eighteen
days i'll the thirties. So far as have been able
to discover, the best ships of the last century
made the run across to New York in seventeen
to twenty days: and in day or so less, going
eastward. In the letters of the Marquis de
thasteluX. Il member of the French Academy
and major general in the French forces under
the tomte de Rochambeau. in the Revolution
AIRY war. published at Paris in 80 in book
form. he mentions the arrival, in ISL, of a ship
at Boston or newport (the book is not now at
hand) in only sixteen days from England, and
says nothing of its being thought an eXtraordi-
mary passage.
4 few farewell words for the good and gal
liant Captain Delano. OF the many hundreds
of people who were carried safely over the sea
by him in the Roscoe. the Patrick Henry and
the Columbia. it is within easy computation on
the mortality tables that quite number must
still be living. Mayhap some of these peru>e
tHs dlticc, suIpTlScu W leaTH tllal tut SleTlln1
old sailor fingered or this planet until so lately
is sixteen months ago. When he retired from
the sea, he went to New Bedford to live. and
for many wears was one of the directors of the
Wamsutta Mills. Mr.. William Watkins. pres
idcnt of the First National Bank of New Bed
ford. writes to me of Captain Delano: ''Iie
was a man of much culture. and student to
within year of his death; a splendid specimen
of a gentleman. He was director of this
bank upward of twenty years.
The last time | saw him over thirty
Years ago. on wharf at New York. No >tran-
ger would have singled him out as the captain
of a great ship that had just been made fast.
He was like the one Socrates mentions in
Pato> Gorgia>, where he says, The ship
master walks in modest garb, by the sea, af-
ter bringing his passengers from Pontus or
from -Egina, not thinking he has done anything
extraordinary" lie was then getting to be an
elderly looking man. At any time during
twenty years, previously to my seeing the no.
tice of his death in the Transcript, if asked
what had become of him. should have said
he had most likely gone over to 1.-THE green
fields Of Eden, on the other side of Jordan
ALPHA CHIIb.