The daily citizen. [volume] (Asheville, N.C.) 1889-1890, 1889-10-06
THE OLD WAY.
HOW STEAMBOATS, RACED
AND BLEW UP,

And How Everybody Took a Hand
and Went up Together, and
How Survivors were Taught the
More Haste, the Less Speed.
The explosion of the steamboat Corona
the other day with the loss OF forty lives
recalls the good old days" of steam
boating on the Mississippi river and it's
tributaries. The only difference is that
in those days they were very much more
in earnest; and when explosions did take
place they counted for great deal more.
There were then no rival railroads run
ming along the banks; but there were rival
boats on the water, the "greyhounds of
the river, propelled by powerful machin-
cry which drew their might from bat
terry of huge boilers exposed to view on
the lower deck, in the excitement of the
inevitable races fed with the most COM
bustiblc fuel that could be had, rich light
wood, rosin, bacon, whatever else was
at hand to add to keeping up the high
est pressure of steam, thrown into the
open furnaces by half naked fremen
dripping with sweat, whose black forms
stood ont i'll dcmoniac relief against the
glowing back ground of the open fur
mace mouth. Sometimes i'll the eager
ness of the race more heed was given to
the supply of fuel than of water; and the
boilers glowed with red heat, visible
plainly from the shore or from other
boats, certain, sooner or later, to cx-
plode, as was the case with the Lucy
Walker when closing race as she ap-
preached the mouth of the canal below
Louisville. There being no railroads, all
the travel was on the rivers. The boats
were always crowded, going either way,
travellers for pleasure, business men,
planters looking after the sale of their
crops, sporting men, gamblers, and ad-
venturcrs of all kinds; oftentimeS whole
families, fathers, mothers and children.
These western boats were always
crowded; time might hang heavy on
l''lh Stlll'JllllS NtlS lllC NbIllllOll ICllCl.
But when another boat shot out into the
stream from any port passed on the way,
and that boat had any pretensions to
speed, as Il matter of course it was ac-
Cepted as a challenge for a race; and into
it everyone entered with wild enthusiasm
and oblivion danger, even to the old
Kentucky lady going down to New Or
leans to sell her "hog crop coming on
board with so much fear of explosion
that she could scarce be forced up the
gang plank yet when the race was on,
running to the Captain with all the
hereditary instincts Of her people, cap
tain don't let them beat us; if nothing
else will do to keep up steam, take my
bacon, throw in every ham, and every
shoulder, and every middling. Do, Cap
tain, do not let 'em beat u.s." And thus
would they 60 until one or the other of
the racers went up the air filled with
flying bodies and fragments of the boat,
and the waters Strown with wreckagc,
and drowning, struggling men. And this
was SO common that it was only such
phenomenal disasters as that of the Ben
Sherrod, the j. NJ. White, the Sultana
and some Others where the loss of life
ran up into the hundreds, and where
prominent men, like Senator Johnston,
of Louisiana, perished, that public equi-
librium was disturbed, and attention di-
rected to boiler inspection, check to rae
ing, and other safeguards thrown around
the helpless passenger.
And some OF these days Just such mis-
cradle end will come to some one or more
of the steam crafts that are ambitious to
make railroad speed across the ocean;
and then again navigators and owners
will have impressed upon them the
truth of the old saw, "the more haste,
the less speed"