Arizona weekly citizen., 1889-09-21
EMBARKING THE MAILS.
eCENES ON AN OCEAN STEAMER
 AT QUEENSTOWN.
A Peep at the steerage Passengers--As the Tender Draws AIongside-Fresh Beauty of Irish ChiIdren-Counting the Mail Bags-Outward Bound.

she render Draws Alongside-Fresh
 Beauty of Irish ChiIdren-Counting the
 Mail Bags-Outward Bound.
 He must be a very unimpressionable
 person whose interest is not reused by the
 scene on an American mail steamer on the
 day after she leaves Liverpool, as she
 steams along the Irish coast in the bright
 sunlight of breezy morning The vary
 ing forms and colors of headland and
 shore would alone be worthy of notice;
 but the curious mass of humanity gath
 cred on the great ship is perhaps more in-
 teresting. And it must be admitted that
 the saloon passengers, taken as a whole,
 have to the observer less of interest and
 character than the miscellaneous throng
 who collect in the less favored quarters of
 the ship. There is monotonous appear
 ance of comfort and prosperity about the
 saloon passengers-each with his privats
 chair-which renders them little dull.
 But every step among the steerage pas-
 sengers gives rise to guess or a reflec-
 tion. Here is sturdy fellow from 8
 Yorkshire iron works on his way to the
 states to seek for employment. Close by
 the saloon door is laborer from Wits
 tall, raw boned, with couple of children
 and weary wife. The whole family have | an air of despondency about them which | does not augur we'll for their future. A | couple of Italian masOns are laughing and | joking with very light hearts indeed; and
 so one by one, each differing from the other-sad or glad hopeful or Respondent. | full of confidence in the future or feeling
 that across the ocean life cannot be harder than at home-the miscellaneous throns | moves about the ship.
 MOVEMENT AND HUSTLE.
 But the white buildings on Roche's l point gleaming in the sunlight tell that | the vessel is nearing Queenstown, and a | feeling of movement and hustle comes over passengers and crew. There is talk of a run ashore; there is an eagerness to see the last British port, a haste to post the last letters to friends in England. The ship slowly steams up the harbor, past the heights of Carlisle fort, and on as if she were bound straight to the white terraces or Queenstown. Gradually she ceases to make headway, and comes to a standstiu between the little village of Whitegates and the bleak sides of Spike island The tender is approaching; but already boats full of untidy girls, selling apples and with baskets of bog oak ornaments and lace, have surrounded the ship As the tender draws alongside it is evident that the mails have not arrived; there are only piles of luggage and a crowd of passengers Some are English or Americans who have crossed through Ireland to shorten the voyage by some sixteen hours, or to visit Killarney; most are emigrants from Ire land. Soon the throng of Irish pours over the gangway-a widowed father carrying his infant, followed by half dozen brown f1A Il. youth with comedy sister; hard wizen faced old farmer in coat of frieze down tO his heels, with his wife.
 Nothing is more striking than the fresh ceauty of the Irish children and the withered hardness of the middle aged ano elderly men and women. Most of them carry their worldly goods in a bag or a handkerchief. Their heaps of bedding. with the tin utensils for the voyage fas- tened to them, are pitched one after an other on the deck, while the owners vainJy try to push past the line of seamen to secure their property. It would be sad lght, this hurrying of these people from their homes, if one could forget the squalid misery from which they are escap- ing. But the tender has been emptied. and is off again for the shore to meet the mails. The train has just drawn up, ard soon files of pOrters, like a line of ants. are putting the sacks on board, and the tender is prepared to make her second trip.
 COUNTING THE MAILBAGs.
 This time she has scarcely any other burden but the mails; and so, when she comes alongside of the steamer, a dozen of the crew are very soon at work piling them on the deck of the ship. An officer counts the bags ss they come on board ''one, two, three, four, live, six seven, eight, uine, ten, tally" So they go over the gangway by tens. They took up a great part of the space on the tender, and they make a huge pile on the steamer; some 300 sacks of letters and papers make il possible to realize the vast correspondence ,f the present day. But for some time ihe great ship has been slowly moving seaward with the tug attached to her tnidships. and the line of seamen hurry ng, each with his sack, across the gang Vay. The long dark sides of the mail steamer, and her lofty upper deck, quite twarf the tender; the captain looking town from his bridge seems far aloft The -ailings are lined with hundreds O. faces-ti4ere are fully a thousand passen- gers on the ship-watching the mails SOiuC Ou UOdIu CNrIy Ouc except Jue regular passengers between New York and Liverpool, of whom there are always several on board, look a little anxious Most of the poorer men and women as sad.
 1t is a cucious spectacle to stand on the bridge of tine tender and look along the sides of the ship at the great vessel and the varying faces on her. But the last bag is on board, the bell on the steamer is sharply struck, and a few friends of the passengers, newspaper boy, and some other miscellaneous persons hurry on hoard the tender to go ashore. The haw- sers are cast off and the little tug steams ahead of the big ship, rounds to for the | shore when she has got some lengths | ahead, and is soon, with the quick, rapid | strokes of her wheels, making for the quay at Queenstown. The great steamer | steals away to the sea with kind of ire | sistible and almost imperceptible motion. l The passengers forms soon become invisi. | ble, and the big, black hull and high | nasts gradually grow less distinct as ''the | liner" passes away by the mouth of the harbor, heading for the west. As the ten deI touches the quay side the mail steamer Is rounding the headland by the sea, l ard in few minutes all that can be seen from the shore is the distant line of smoke | which tells of her course across the At Iantic.-St James Gazette.