The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1899-05-01
THE HOOKER READY
TO SAIL FOR MANILA
Spanish Prize That Becomes
a Cable Ship.
To Connect All Military Posts in
the Philippines.
Voyage Expected to Consume Eight,
Dnys-Bont Well Equipped for
Her Important Work.

New York, April 30.-Bright and new
recognize in Uncle Sans new cable steam
ship. General Hooker, the old Spanish pas
senger steamship Panama, captured during
the war by the little tug Mangrove. But
such is fact, and the Panama, now the
General Hooker. under the influence OF
hard cash literally spent by her new own
er, has taken a new lease of life. If all
goes well she will leave this port tomor-
row for the Philippines, where she will lay
at least 800 miles of cable.
The mission OF the vessel and her officers
and crew is to lay branches to connect all
the military stations on the islands with
the main cable lines. The task may take
more than two years.
A small army of men worked on the
Hooker yesterday as she lay alongside the
Government pier at the foot OF Pacific
Street, Brooklyn. Painters were putting
the last touches to her interior finish. Tin
smiths were lining with zinc the small re-
frigerators on the port and starboard sides
of the spar deck forward. Other workmen
were busily engaged in fitting up the quar-
tiers of the firemen and sailors in the
tween decks forward.
The General Hooker has gained a new
topgallant forecastle since she was re-
christened, and at the Morse Iron Works
in South Brooklyn, where she was prac-
tically rebuilt. new tubes were put in her
boilers. The little pilot house on top
of the superstructure was replaced by a
steel deckhouse, the forward end of which
is used as pilot house and the rest as
stateroom for the captain-Stephen Han
Low
walked the bridge of ocean steamships for
more than twenty years.
Captain Hanlon was found superlntend-
ing the arrival of a consignment of charts
and volumes of salty wisdom needed in q
trip of such length as the Hooker viii
undertake
There in hatch No. l." he said, point.
ing downward. lis seventy tons of cable
coiled in a tank. AS the cable weighs
three tons to the mile, there are a little
| more than twenty three miles in that tank
In No. hold. which is just abaft this one
We have another tank, which now hold:
$50 tons of cable. or a continuous line Isl
miles in length. No. 3 hold, aft. contain.
$50 tons, or a little more than ninety-thret
miles of cable
Besides this, We have stored on board
1000 miles OF shore telegraph wire which
with the fittings that go with it weigh:
$50 tons more. There are also on boarC
40 miles of shore cable, and altogether
| with the coal. stores. and supplies of al
sorts, the Panama will have 1900 ton!
| measurement on board when she leaves
| New York.
THE voyage to Manila will occupy a
least eighty days. for, with the auxiliar!
| machinery which gives the vessel create
weight. and her deep draft, l do no
expect her to log much more than Mint
| knots an hour on the average"
The General Hooker will pay a cabl
over drum placed on the forecastle head
| and the machinery for picking up the cabl
is placed on the spar deck forward of tn
| fore hatch.
| Pointing over the port and starboar'
| bows. on the topgallant forecastie, are tw
! six-pounder rapid-fre guns, the vessel
| only armament