The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1891-01-03
STEAMSHIP sTokERs.
The Men who Feed the Firos on th,
Groat Ocean Racers.

Aho NhoH VINO FGou tho Flroh on Gno
Great Ocean Racers.
The lot of the fireman aboard mod
ern racing steamship, compared with
that of the grimy toiler in the lurf1, un
ventilated stokeholes Of old-time craft
has mild suggestion Of luxury about
It, But even at its best 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 q fireman.
The limitations of his life--devoid OF
domestic nfuences-have, doubtless,
helped to brutalize him. A man with
out vista is not likely to have high
standard of morality.
Few in authority on shipboard had a
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
a gentleman compared with the cattle
man. This Is not highly complimentary
to the stoker, but it tends to show that
he is not the most degraded Of the toll
ers of civilization. Since tho architects
of the great twin-screw ships recog-
nized the firemans existence. and made
fireroom in which an ordinary man
may live for a time, the fireman has i'm
proved somewhat. In dispelling the
gloom of the fireroom the shipbuilder
shed some light into the soul of the
| tiremen. 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. or 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 better man of the
stoker. All the big steamship COM
panies now practically recognize the
union, and on all ships of the twin
screw fleet 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
know how to stir or poke the fire, so as
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 the American coal he uses on the
trip eastward. Each kind requires diff
ferent handling. Often the result of
trip eastward has been determined by
the superior knowledge of the handling
of American coal possessed by the win
ming ships stokers. To man who
thoroughly understands it, firing is
easier than it used to be. But it is,
nevertheless, so arduous that the vet
Grams are not over forty-fve years old.
Nearly all the stokers on the City of
Paris and the City of New York are be-
tween twenty and thirty years of age.
They receive $40 a month and their
board, The leading stoker gets a few
dollars more and does not have to work
quite so hard. He is usually the eldest
of the crew he directs. The coal passer,
the limit of whose ambition is to be.
come fireman, gets $3.50 a month.
The leading coal passer, or trimmer,
gets little more than this.
Service in the fire room is divided
into six watches of four hours each.
The fireman works and sleeps every
alternate four hours. After tho first
day from port two out of every six fur.
naces are raked out to the bare bars
during the first hour of each watch.
Thus, in voyage, all the furnaces are
cleaned once in every twenty-four hours
The steam goes down a bit in the hour
while the cleaning is going on. The
perspiring stokers shovel into the
furnaces fifteen tons of coal every
hour, or $40 tons day. The ship usu-
ally takes in 5000 tons at Liverpool,
and has between 500 and 800 tons left in
her bunkers when she arrives here.
The engineers department is entirely
distinct and separate from the firemen's
On the City of Paris there are twenty
six engineers including hydraulic and
electrical. They are educated in en-
gine shops on shore, and certain num-
ber Of them go on ships every year
They are all machinists, so whenever
the ship breaks down they know how
to repair the damage. In case the chief
engineer should be disabled any assist
ant could take his place.-N. Y. Sun.
SAVE YOUR SHOES.
The Destructive Effect of Hot Air on