The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-03-25
OCEAN TRAMPS.
More Than Half Fly the English
FLAG

more IMAM Aa-I Fly the English
Flag.
Samuel a. Wood in Ainslee's ATagaZine)
For the benefit Of the reader unfa-
miliar with the lingo Of shipping men.
it may be well to define what consti-
tutes a tramp steamship. Briefly. it
may be said that a tramp is a merchant
| steam vessel that runs on no regular
route, and is ready for the service OF
anybody VINO wants 10 pay her owner
a reasonable sum to take a cargo to any
port, remote or near, IN the world. The
owner of a tramp finds It more profit
able sometimes TO charter her for a
year to a line that needs her pending
the building Of a new ship, than to run
The chance Of getting a series Of paying
caFgoes within that period Some Of
the cid, slow, SiDgte-screW liners have
6egenera6ed into tramps, and even a
few Of the transatlantic record hol6ens
or twenty years ago or less have gona
cargo seeking in many ports. That
might have been the fate Of the old
Guisn steamship Alaska. (Which aston
ished the world in 1883 by covering
tae sea space between QueenSteWn and
New York in SIX days and tweutJr-ene
hours. If she had net been q greedy
coal consumer. and, therefore,, too ex-
pensfye fer tramp service. Above al
Things, the tramp must be economical
N the use OF coal. As the Alaska was
not mt 10 be &, tramp, and was TOO Old
and, comparatively, too slow for a fist
class liner, al that her owners could DO
was to sell her fer old junk, which they
o1d last June. Previous to that she
/ had been used for some time as q ten
ement in an English haTbor
The tramp tonnage runs into the
millions, and over half Of It is under
the Omnipresent red merchant ensign
Of Great Britain. More than three
quarters OF the tramps are OF British
buaid. They fly the flags Of all nations.
but the flag does not always indicate
the nationality of the owners Of the
ships. Many tramps ever whose tan
rails the Norwegian nag floats are own
ca by Americans, and some OF the cid
sea nenlaas Of British registry are the
property of speculative Yankees. Next
in ereer of Number 70 the British
| eramps are the Germans, with the Nor
Wegians a close third. There are. com-
parat1Yefy, small number OF French,
Russian, Italian, Austrian, Swedish,
Spanish, Chinese and japanese traups
Nearly all tramps flying the flags OF
the last three nationalities are Of Brit
l9h construction. There are very few
american tramps. The pioneer Yankee
craft of this sort was launched only a
year ago. She is the Winifred. and IS
now doing service as coaster FOR The
! Morgan line, plying between New York
| anu New Orleans She is the first
| steamship Designed in America. esgec-
la4iy Tor carrying a cargo anywhere
there are other, but not many tramps.
Tying the stars and stripes They ara
merely nStura5ized Americans. bswever.
SEINE acquired American registry dur
ing the Spanish American war, when
/ they were purchased by the govern
ment for Use as transports. After me
| war they were sold, and their purchas-
ems, being mostly Americans, put them
under the ensign of Uncle sam. The
! W I1afred belongs TO Miller, Bull &
knowlton of New York. who run 2 line
! OF passenger and freight ships between
New York and Porto Rico. She was
| buIft by the Bath Iron Works company
OF bath, Ne. II was expected that she
would 90 most OF her 'tramp4ng' be
tween ports Of the United States and
| those OF the West Indies and Central
ana South America. She is a steel YES
sci OF Z,6Uo tons, gross measurement.
ana Is Seo feet long over all. She Is
oapaSie c1 carrying about $500 tons
dead weight, and IS ecTssppa6 yvi+l1
tr1pie-eazoaasf0n engines that were ex-
| pected TO give her a speed of about ten
Knots an hour, when iosSed. She did
not seVe4op this speed by more tfan
| Two Knots, and her owners have sued
! her builders for n0n-fUkfllln1snt Of con-
tract she IS very hot ehso IN The
! saoisehoid- One eject OF the acdaire-
1aent by the UEasted States Of new ter
ritory IN the West Indies and the Pa
cIuc, American steamship men conf
| dentiy declare, VII be the bJsildius of
a karge fleet of modern tran4ns she
keels Of some OF which are already
laid" - >