Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-07-26
REFORMS ON THE SEA.
Wakeman Scores the Food and tam
bling Evils and Shows
HOW THEY CAN BE ERADICATED.
Some Of the Unwholesome Features OF
Travel on the Ocean.
BIG AND SWIFT SHIPS SURE TO CONE


LIVERPOOL, July 12.-It your steamer
have anything like a pleasant passage,
shortly after the banks are crossed, there is
agradual return to life from the torpor, OF
horror, of seasickness, and you will find
that majority of passengers will come back
to cabin and deck chastened and bettered
from their recent bitter experiences. There
is q general recognition of what has been
going on; but no one is so impolite as to
discuss the matter. In short, there is less
bile aboard ship. The ozone of the sea is
giving its magical elation to all. Alta
bility has dethroned irritsbility. Enforced
rest has become a soothing nurse to the sore
and hurt American nerve. In this kindly
mood there are endless trifing exchange OF
courtesies that yield the heartiest acquaiut-
anceships, which often grow into tine warm,
staunch friendships of a lifetime. Men
value each others experiences on ship
board. There is no place like it for meas
uriRg your fellow men justly.
The conversational feasts aboard ship
universally begin and end with some feature
of steamship life and service. Out of all
this, and from much personal inquiry among
practical promoters of ocean travel, are
gathered few prevailing ideas. These are
chiefly upon the vital questions of capacity,
speed, safety and service or maximum Of
comfort to passengers.
BIG SHIPS PROJECTED.
The latest ocean greyhounds have q
capacity of 10, 600 tons burthen, or better.
One company is now at work on II, 300 ton
ship. Two liners now in commission are
6S5 feet in length, or five feet longer than the
unwieIdy Great Eastern, now being broken
up for old iron at Eastman, in the river
Nersey, just above Liverpool. Naval archi-
tects believe that before the year 1900, we
will be crossing the ocean in steamships of
1900 to %, 900 tons burthen, upward of 750
feet in length, which will make the passage
in from four to four and one-half days, and
comfortably carry 1000 passengers, while
their safety may be absolutely assured. ALI
this is claimed to be simply question Of
money; and it is believed the vast increase
of ocean travel will warrant the necessary
expenditure.
One hundred thousand people now annu-
ally cross the ocean from America. This
involves an outlay of S10,000,0 200. Each
yesr,this increases. Shortening the time of
passage is held by steamship managers to
greatly augment the proportion of natural
increase in ocean travel. Briefly, it is the
general conviction that while the travel
amounts to 100000 annually with six and
seven dav boats, it would reach 150, 900 with
fve-day boats, 200, 900 with four-and-a-half
day boats, and 800, 900 with four-day boats
The builders on the Clyde say to the COM
panies: Gentlemen, if you wish to put
$4,000, 900 instead of S1000, 900 into single
steamships, we can produce the four-day
boatP' This is an open secret, and it is to-
day not so much a question of whether it
can be done, as whether the steamship COM
napies willing IN have If dona
WHY THEY ARE GOING SLOW.
The reason for their hesitancy, and that
they are approaching the limit by easy
stages, is obvious. Any one company
which would dare to astoundingly out-do
the others by putting upon the ocean lanes
four, or even five, day ships, must be pre-
pared financially to Withstand deadly war
of passenger and freight rates from the COM
bined transatlantic lines, as well as at the
same moment to find all other of their own
steamships dead loss on their own hands
None of the British companies will do this.
An American company with a capital of
$4,000, 600 (of course, building on the
Clyde, and flying the British fag) could
do SO; and could instantly command
the cream of the ocean traffic. There
is an important element in the matter
not usually considered. That is the already
who are most desirable passengers. to the
steamship lines, and indeed who aggregate
the great bulk of ocean travel, are positively
independent of any consideration as to fares
The fast and luxurious steamers now get
without question or objection, from $500 to
81, 600, per trip for choice accommodations:
and these very steamships have, every trip.
proportionately larger number of passen-
gers at these figures than for their ordinary,
and still luxurious, accommodations at from
$50 to $500. Only this season leading line
nearly doubled its rates for its two crack
six-dav boats, expecting to thus give their |
higher priced passengers a little more ell |
bow room; but there has so far been scarcely |
perceptible dimunition in the numbers car |
ried
When the four-day ship arrives in New
York harbor, and believe good while be- |
fore that time, there will come a revolution |
In the manner of serving food on the Allan |
tic liners. At present there is enough |
wasted TO provide for twice the number |
served. And yet with very meager excep- |
tion the ocean cuisine is an abominable |
travesty on delicate dining. There is no |
excuse on shipboard for illy-served food. |
The catering is bountiful, extraordinary, |
superb. But the system of compelling 500 |
ladies and gentlemen to partske of cold and |
clammy courses at given hours, whether or |
no, is unqualifedly repulsive and beastly. |
A FooD-sEkvING SUGGESTION.
Within the past few years 1 have sug-
gested the change would substitute, to be-
tween 200 and 800 of the millionaire fire.
Quent ocean travellers. and to chief stewards
and managers of a few of the larger vessels |
of the more enterprising lines. The passen-
gers have universally asserted that the first
new steamships to adopt such plan should !
have their own and their friends patron
age; while stewards and managers have ad-
mitted that the system was not only feasible |
bnt that the constant demand for improve
ment in ocean steamship service would COM
pei its near adoption. Briefly, it is the |
substitution of the iron-clad, unvarying, re- |
morselessly-regulsr and ever-nauseating |
Observation-Disclosures system |
for regular, but lesser, table d. hote ser |
vice. for those who wish passage to include |
meals, and Delmonico a la carte service, |
independent of passage money, for those |
whose taste, convenience and disposition |
(or indisposition) would make this form |
OF eating through weeks Imprisonment G
real godsend.
We Americans pay from SIS to $50 per |
day for what little we ge: from New York to |
Liverpool. If ordinary passage money were |
fixed at from SIS to S150, the steamship COM |
panies could we'll afford all they now give. |
The same accommodations, without meals, |
should be secured for from $50 to 500. The |
rich could pay their 5000 to $500 for luxuri- |
Gus suites. Then with half a dozen COM |
similar to those provided on the |
iatest-built liner for children's and servants
mess rooms, and make them as gorgeous as
YOU please, one could eat, as desire prompt |
- =, -,aooo apd cou1 fnrt and n wonld he a L