The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1902-11-07
THE STEAMBOAT MORGU E
ONCE FAMOUS CRAFT AWAIT
DISSOLUTION IN JERSEY.

They are Sunk in the Mud-Some
HOadOos In the Lot-some Called Pa
latiaI in Their Day.
The old Central, the hoodoo of the Jer-
sey Centrars ferry feet, craft built in
Brooklyn thirty-nine years ago, has at
last found her way to the steamboat
morgue down at Perth Amboy, where
so many boats well known in their day
have given up the ghost. There was
never anything essentially wicked about
the Central, She never committed any
sensational crime, was never concerned
in any wholesale killing as was the
Staten Island ferryboat Westfield. The
CentraPs h0odoo hardly went beyond
petty messes and minor accidents, with
a liberal allowance of suicides. But
if there was anything in this line going
when the Central was near she could be
safely counted on to be in it.
In this respect she was close second
to the Chicago Of the Pennsylvania
feet, only the Chicago's' career was
more deprayed and desperate than was
the CentraPs. The Chicago had one dy-
Mantle explosion and many more trou-
bles. Her favorite trick was lunging
into her pier and everything afioat that
was within reach. On her last grand
spree she sank to the bottom of the
North river and drowned some people.
But that tragedy seemed to steady her
and to bring home to her the advantage
of leading better life. When she was
raised from the mud of the river bottom
and rebuilt she was changed boat.
She has swung from CORTLAND street to
the Pennsylvania railroad station in
Jersey City and back again ever since
with the regularity of clock pendulum.
Even those who once most distrusted
her are now convinced that her reform
is genuine and that hereafter she may
be counted upon to lead an exemplary
life.
But the poor old Central may never
have chance to reform. She is down
at Gregorys steamship dock awaiting
sentence. Really she shows few rhaces
of the reckless, devil-may-ca life she
sas led for nearly forty years. She is
just trifie sway-bocked and her guard
rails are battered in, looking a little as
though she might have been out all
night on a fog rampage. But other
wise she is all right. Give her boiler
good head of steam-and it'd stand the
steam all right-and put friendly
hand at the tiller, and the Central
would run away from thatN graveyard
with broad, bright streak OF foam in
her wake.
She looks very. forlorn, though, now,
with the decaying old steamboat skele-
tons all around her. On one side Is the
old Mortified, sister to the Westfield Of
tragic memory. On the other is the big
Chancellor, with her ribs letting the
daylight through them. Then there is
the swaybacked Colonia, which after
years of useful life, carrying tens Of
thousands safely over the waters Of the
bay and river. suddenly became de-
PRAYED in her old age, took to permit
ting gambling and the Illicit sale of Ing
toxicating beverages abroad. had her Ii
cense taken away and was finally towed
around to Gregory's steamboat slaugh-
ter house, where she, too, Is now await
ing execution. Nothing can save her.
Her name is junk.
But the Central is merely awaiting
sentence. 1t is not yet determined
whether she is to die. That all depends
on how she stands the test OF future eX-
aminations. When Mr.. Gregory buys in
cessel from the insurance companies
or from the individual or corporation
that owns her and takes her around to
his abattoir it does not necessarily mean
that she must die. The lives of a great
many have been spared at the last mo-
ment. All depends on whether anybody
can see enough promise of good in the
vessel to warrant paying the price Mr..
Gregory fixes as her ransom. Mr..
Gregory himself will do nothing to save
the life of a vessel that comes into his
hands. He does no repairing whatever.
a boat is taken from him by paying
his price it is taken just as it Is. So
there is a fighting chance for the Gen.
trail yet.
AS for the Drew-the stately Drew,
which for so many years was one Of the
night queens of the Hudson river be-
tween New York and Albany-for her.
too, there Is no hope. Her back Is brok-
en- and she rests in the mud, leaning
heavily against Mr.. Gregory's dock. hut
still towering above the heads Of the
forlorn feet that crowd close up to her.
She Is already In process of dissolu-
rt1irnrU Jvita1S holn
taken out and her smokestack is gone.
The process of Transforming her into
junk is going steadily on. Soon the pa
latial craft which in years gone by, all
ablaze with light and life, and to the
merry tinkling of music, swept by
moonlight up the broad Hudson, will be
but memory and q name. Her COM
panion. the Dean Richmond, went the
way of all steamboat timber and iron
long ago. Both were stately figures III
the travel of a generation or so ago.
AS it is in the killing of steer under
modern methods, so 1t is in the killing
of a steamboat. Not a scrap goes to
waste. Pilot houses are taken off bodi-
" and sold bodily. Timbers and siding
that is sound go into the building Of
other craft or into the building Of hous-
es or sheds. Woodwork that cannot be
otherwise used is cut up and sold for
firewood and kindlings Every piece Of
machinery that is beyond use, every
bolt and nut that Is fit for nothing else,
goes to the scrap iron heap and so later
finding it's way to the furnaces and
FORCES comes out in new forms of iron
work once more. Boats go from New