The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1891-03-05
STEAMSHIP sTokERs.
The Men who Feed the Fires on the
Great Ocean Racers,

budb Vi luC JULIET III bAG 4uT1ua I'LL
ventilated stokeholes of old-time craft,
has mild suggestion of luxury about
it. But even at it's best a stoker's life
is not likely to arouse in the soul of the
| lowliest laborer ashore feelings of un-
mitigated envy. His hopes are circum-
scribed by the stoke hole. He has no
horizon whereon he may paint dream
pictures of better future He may not
aspire to any thing beyond the kindred
| occupation of a leading stoker. The
| engine room is forever closed to him.
1t is once fireman, always fireman.
The limitations of his life-devoid of
| helped to brutalize him. A man with
out a vista is not likely to have high
standard of morality.
Few in authority on shipboard had
! good word to say for the stoker of the
/ past, who spent his leisure ashore in
drinking fusel oil and brawling. 1t is
| not exactly so now. One British ship
/ per has even declared that the stoker is
| gentleman compared with the cattle
man. This is not highly complimentary
to the stol1er, but it tends to show that
he is not the most degraded Of the toll
| ers of civilization. Since the architects
of the great twin-screw ships recog-
nized the fireman's existence, and made
freroom in which an ordinary man
may live for time, the fireman has inn
proved somewhat. In dispelling the
gloom of the fireroom the shipbuilder
shed some light into the soul of the
firemen. In an atmosphere made breath.
able by huge ventilating fans and cheer.
full by electric lights, when the furnace
doors are closed the fireman can do
more work with less fatigue than form
erly. OF course it wasn't pure phil
anthropy that gave him ventilation.
The big fans, making 400 revolutions
a minute, were made primarily to force
air into the furnaces and burn the coal,
SO the throbbing engines might do all
the work their ambitious designers ex-
pected of them. The cultivation of the
spirit of brotherhood, through the Fire.
mems Union, has also done much
toward making a better man of the
stoker. Ali the big steamship COM
panies now practically recognize the
union, and on all ships of the twin
screw feet only union men are en-
ployed. Fighting the union whose
men are natural fghters-has proven
expensive to the steamships, which not
infrequently have lost two days on a
, trip because green men were before the
, furnaces.
!, On the steamship City of Paris there
are sixty firemen, who feed the fiery
maws of fifty-four furnaces, that create
steam in nine steel boilers. Fifty coal
, passers shovel the fuel from the bunk
ers to the furnace doors, and the fire.
men tossed it in. There is something
more than mere shoveling in firing
The stoker must know how to put the
: Goals on so they will not burn too
: quickly or deaden the fire. He must
r know how to stir or poke the fire, so as
5 to get all, or nearly all, the caloric out
) of the coal. He must know how to
| obtain the best RESULTS from the Welsh
| coal he burns on the voyage to this port
: and tho American coal he uses on the
trip eastward. Each kind requires diff
l ferent handling. Often the result of a
trip eastward has beeE termined by
+ the superior knowledge ofethe handling
] of American coal possessed by the win
d ming ships stokers. To a man who
r thoroughly understands it, firing is
f easier than it used to be. But it is,
q nevertheless, so arduous that the vet
0 erans are not over forty-five years old.
3 Nearly all the stokers on the City OF
!. Paris and the City of New York are be-
tween twenty and thirty years of age
s They receive $40 month and theil
n | ho..S Tho Ioodivw stAlro, -ata n for.
= dollars more and does not have to work
v quite so hard. He is usually the e1dAs
: of the crew he directs. The coal passer
Q the limit of whose ambition is to be
Q come a fireman, gets $3.50 month
! The leading coal passer. or trimmer
L gets little more than this
Service in the fire room is divided
into six watches of four hours each
" The fireman works and sleeps ever
alternate four hours. After the frs
Q day from port two out Of every six fur
naces are raked out to the bare bar
9 during the first hour of each watch
9 Thus, in voyage, all the furnaces are
Q cleaned once in every twenty-foHr hours
The steam goes down bit in the hou
J; while the cleaning is going on. Tn
O perspiring stokers shovel into tn
furnaces fifteen tons of coal ever,
q hour, or $40 tons day. The ship usu
9 ally takes III 5000 tons at Liverpool
s. and has between 500 and 800 tons left il
Q her bunkers when she arrives here.
J The engineers department is entirel.
9 distinct and separate from the iremen'c
Q On the City of Paris there are twenty
2 six engineers, including hydraulic an
= electrical They are educated in er
4 CINE shops on shore, and certain nun
+ Der of them go on ships every yea
= They are all nachinists, so wheneye
q the ship breaks down they know ho'
= to repair the damage. In case the chic
p engineer should be disabled any assis
d ant could take his place.-N. Y. Sun.
ot An Expansive Smile.
"a Nr.fvs--.s- Tes43 -v1,, ~, ~