The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-05-02
ROUND THE WORLD IN so DAYS.
Mai. Pangborn's schedule for a Rec
Ord-BreaI<ing Trip, More Than
Half by Rail.
From the Baltimore sun.

Maj. J. @. Pangborn has arrived in Bal
timore from Europe. He crossed the ocean
in the Kaiser Wilhelm der Crosse when
she broke the record from the Cherbourg
breakwater to Sandy Hook, averaging
twenty-five and a third knots an hog
1t took the ship just five days and twenty
hours to make the trip from port to port
The truth is" said the major, progress
these days is 50 fast that we travel with
such rapidly that we don't see the mile
stones, as 1t were, and are at a new des-
tination before knowing just how cur ar
rival has been effected
IF 1 live three years 1 expect, in COM
pany with Prince Hilkof, the Russian
minister Of railways, 10 go round the
word on the moons schedule-that is TO
say, in thirty days
How? l will tell YOU.
First let me give an idea of the dis
tances, the route ard the proportion Of rail
to water travel, the latter an important
point, as land transit means the lessen
ing of time en- route fully half over the
very best a ship can do.
Suppose we start from Baltimore. Via
the Baltimore and Ohio. the Milwaukee
and st. Paul and the Great Northern it
IS, say, $3.50 miles 10 Seattle; thence via
the Pacific TO Yokohama 450O miles,
thence TO Port Arthur via Nagasakie it
is loo miles more At Port Arthur we
leave ship, and, going ashore, teke train
on the Manchuriau extension of the
Trans Siberian Railway for st. Peters
purg, $500 miles; thence by rail direct
to Berlin, 1000 miles, and on to London.
$50 miles Ship again this time on the
Atlantic to New York, $500 miles, winding
up with the Royal Blue Limited, the con-
Guiding 200 miles or less From this hasty
summary of mileage in round figures 1t
VIII be noted that the total of rail- travel
Is 10. 200 miles, and of water, 5000 miles, an
aggregate of 1900 miles, or for good meas
ure, make II 10000.
van Horne, the American president OF
the Canadian Pacific once made a phe-
nomenal run with the English mail from
London to Yokohama against the record
time of the Peninsula and Oriental steam
ers, and, despite the fact that he had two
oceans TO cross made 1t in twenty days, or
just half the time of the heetest ships via
Brindisi and the Suez
Physically, so to speak, the Russians
have an advantage that cannat in any
possible manner be overcome. Turn which
way the English may in the attempt to
even up the condition and they are con-
fronted by the necessity of passing over
the soil Of other nations to reach their
own distant possessions and the CONNER
cial marts of the East and Far East
Splendid isolation is only splendid when
masterfu Mistress of he sea was mas
terful when by the sea was the access to
the world
1T has been very hard for the sturdy
and well-settled Enghshman 10 recognize
that a transformation is transpiring, that
the land and not the sea, is the irresisti-
bic force in modern development, and that
the locomotive unlike the ship, leaves a
wake which remains.
The Fashoda incident, as 1t has come to
be generally termed is the purpose of
England to preserve her Cape-to- Cairo
Trans-African Railway from being inter
sected by the projected French East and
West line.
While not overmuch has as yet APP
peared upon the surface. it Is true never
theless, that much uneaslness prevails in
English governmental circles over the ad-
vance Of the Russian railway line from
Nerve, In the Trans-Caspia, if not really
over the Afghanistan frontier, so nearly
so to again raise the bugaboo of a Mus
covite invasion of India on her land and
consequently weakest side
IAN average of forty miles an hour by
train and twenty by ship would insure the
transit within thirty days, or, as 1 have
already iguratlvely described, between one
new moon and another.
jor. that with the completion of the
great Siberian line to Port Arthur and
TaLien-Wan in 1902, he will make the
time from London to Shanghai fourteen
days. And he will, l have no doubt of it.
although know my English friends, upon
hearing this, will be most incredulous But
why should they be? To do ID will only
require an average of twenty-five miles
an hour by rail and fifteen by ship the
water part of the trip being something
less than per cent. of the whole, or GOO
of The 5000 miles.
There have been many changes for the
| better in the construction of the Siberian
road the past two or three years. seventy
pound rail has been substituted for the or
iginal forty-nine pound; nearly 80 per cent.
greater number of ties or sleepers per
mile have been added, and the roadbed
throughout given an attention to which 1t
was at first more or less a stranger. From
a purely military or strategic railway the
conception has broadened out on CONNER
cial and developing lines.
1.-THE shortest and quickest way from
London to Shanghai at this stage of the
proceedings is by rail TO Dover, the tran
sit of the channel to Calais and rail across
| France and Italy to Brindisi. the distance
| from London TO the latter named port be-
! ing 1880 odd miles, and the time by the
| special weekly express-the most expens-
i've train In the world to journey upon
-forty-five hours. or an average of thirty
miles an hour, inclusive Of the steamer
trip across the channel From Brindisi
via the Suez canal 10 Shanghai it is $3.50
odd miles, all water and the fastest of the
| Peninsula and Oriental-the crack line
! ships make il in thirty-three days, or.
| whole time London to Shanghai thirty
| five days. The ship speed thus averages
| 10h knots per hour.
Make il fifteen per hour. which, for
| the canal delays, harbor stops and gen
| eral conditions met on so long a voyage
in tropical seas would be equal to eigh-
teen. II not indeed twenty, knots straight
away, as on the Atlantic or the Pacific.
and the thirtythree days are lessened to
twenty-three and half, making the to-
| tai time about twenty-five days.
in China It continues railway politics
so palpably that one doesn't have to be q
diplomat or the son of a diplomat to an
| preciate The fact. The remarkable and un-
precedented action of the English govern.
ment in practically guaranteeing the bonds