The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1897-03-27
THE PLIMSOLL MARK.

"A Device That Has Saved Hundreds
81, of Lives and Much Property.
{ If you ever walk around the water
front of a large commercial city and
look closely at the big ocean steam
ships and sailing ships moored along
the wllarves, you will notice that many
of them have a white circle and a lot
Of white lines marked on their sides
close to the water, almost as if some
bad boy had been chalking a picture
there of a griddle-cake and gridiron; !;
but when you find that hundreds Of
ships are marked just the same way,
those painted light colors having the
marks in black, you know that those
marks really mean something of i'm
portance in connection with the ships
on which you see them. If you should
notice more closely you would soon
discover that all the ships belonging to-
Great Britain even the magnificent
passenger steamers like the Lucania
and Teutonic, were marked with those
queer signs, and that ships of no other
nation had them. If you were to ask
some sailor what the mark meant he
would tell you briefly that it is the
"Plimsoll Mark" and you would be no
wiser than before; in fact, he probably
would not know much more than that
bare fact himself. 6
That ugly mark, however, rs the
safeguard to hundreds of vessels on
the stormy ocean, and to thousands Of
lives, and to millions of dollars worth
of freight. 1t has only been in Use
about twenty years, only properly used
for the last ten years, and is still
adopted by only one great seafaring
nation in all the world.
Twenty-Five years ago it was no un-
common thing for ships to go out to
sea laden with valuable cargo and
hopeful beings, never to be seen Or
heard of again. People on Shore even
the owners Of the cargoes and relatives
of the passengers would take it as
something they must be prepared to
expect on account Of the dangers Of
the ocean. Finally, one man deter
mined to make a study Of the subject,
and see if such terrible tragedies were
really unavoidable. He was an infex-
ible Englishman named Plmsoll, and
"a member of parliament. He spent
day after day afung the decks watch
ing ships loading and unloading, COM
ing in and going out; he talked with
ship owners, captains and sailors. He
saw ships sent to sea with leaky bot
toms, rotten spars and 5Worn-olt rig
ging, with rusty boilers and rattle-trap
engines. He saw them loaded until
even in the still waters of the harbor
their upper decks were down to the
waters edge, and this overlooking
seemed to be the worst and most fire.
quent fault.
Then he went back to parliament
and introduced a bill to put a mark on
the sides Of ships to show how deeply
they could with safety be loaded. The
mark suggested was a circle with a
horizontal line through it's center
When this horizontal line was down to
the waters edge, no more freight was
to be put into the vessel; she was to be
considered loaded. Immediately Plim-
soil brought down upon himself the
wrath of ship owners, while every
body else laughed at his cranky idea
but he was not going to be doWned.
He published a book telling all he had
learned about the criminal overlooking g
Of vessels and their wretched condi-
ton when sent to sea.
r At last he got a vague sort of an act
passed giving the board of trade pow
er to survey ships going to sea and to
stop those which seemed to be unsea-
worthy. This was in 1873 .aud during
the first nine months of the act 2S6
vessels were surveyed, and 256 of
them found unseaworthy. At least one
in every ten was found to be so dan
gerously overloaded as to be in al
most a sinking condition before leav-
ing the dock. Of course, this opened
the eyes of the board of trade and Of
parliament, and Plimsoll's mark be-
came an established feature on Brit
ish sea-going ships, but its establish
ment was fought against by ship own
ers inch by inch. It was nicknamed
the 'spancake," and ridiculed and treat
ed with contempt i'm every way. Some
ship owners put the mark on their
smoke-stacks in defiance and derision.
Plimsoll held to his idea, however,
even getting himself suspended from
the house of commons one day for be-
ing too blunt and violent in his plain
talk upon the subject. The result was
''The Merchant Shipping Act of *1S76,'
making the PlimsoIl Mark compulsory
on all British sea-going vessels. and
requiring it's position to be fixed, not
by the ship overs, but by the. board of
trade e-Lieut. John NJ. 'SEnicott, q. s..
N, in st. Nicholas.
A Remarkable Boy.
.|s,1EH asES .4