The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-04-28
EFAMRAH BROTHERS,
 7S5 CHAPEL STREET.

compels the appalling conclusion that
 the assurance in the public mind as to the comparative safety of freighters
 and their crews is not well founded. While the pressure of traffic and com
 petition requires the building of swift,
 substantial, well modelled and conse- quently safe and seaworthy ships, well
 equipped and humanely perfect, for passenger conveyance, there is no such pressure exerted on the owners or | freight steamers. These are built shai- low. that many ports may be entered
 without the expense of Tightening. In
 strength, a deep ship has manifestly great advantage over a shalliw one, but the latter type can, with smaller draught of water, carry heavier cargoes
 and this means a saving of money to
 the owners. An initial saving is effect ed in the construction of the craft, for hull does not need to be made sui ficiently strong to resist the unpleasant
 and injurious jarring of the machinery. a condition demanding the very oppo- site treatment in passenger boat. Nor
 is speed primary consideration in
 
 low draught vessel is constructed at
 the expense of safety. Steel, moreover is used almost exclusively in building
 these ships instead of the iron frames
 and plates employed formerely The
 steel ones are lighter and thinner than
 the harder and more durable ones, and
 the experience of every unbiased au- thority is that the latter under the same
 circumstances can more successfully
 stand the same tests and give greater
 safety and satisfaction.
 But, strange to relate, most marine underwriters give the preference to
 steel steamers, because, when stranded
 they bear the resultant pounding better
 than iron ones, though during her life l on the ocean wave her ability to main tain a conflict with the elements which
 there beset her is decidedly lessened If
 she is built of steel, for it renders her unfit for certain stress and strain in
 rough weather, and dangerius waters
 like the ice zone of the North Atlantic.
 Tn addition to this, recent British legis-
 lation has relaxed the stringepcy of the flaws to prevent the overlooking of ships
 which the famous Plimsoll wrung from Parliament many years ago. The Brit fish regulations formerely required more freeboard for winter than for
 summer. and still lighter cargo for
 winter in the North Atlantic Ocean.
 But of late these rules have been modi- flied especially in ships over 300 feet
 long. Consequently, overlooking is
 again being practiced when freighters
 have cargoes with the result that they
 cannot withstand the attacks of the
 winds and the waves particularly the
 winters tempests; while, on the other hand, when they are withou cargo they are so underballasteu that it may almost be said that this condition be- comes a veritable premium on disaster.
 Scores of unballasted steamers attempt | to cross the Atlantic in midwinter, and Ithe behavior of the screw propeller in lthese-hardly ever more than half of it
 being under water, while in rough
 weather it is alternately out of water Ientirely or buried wholly in the waves I--requires no effort of the imaginatiin
 Ito picture How many such cargo
 tramps come to their end from this
 cause can only be conjectured, but
 when it is remembered that most of , tJ0GSG DOdlS IldkG IHG IudJOlIty IL JllGlL
 viyages in ballast; that the breakdows : of the machinery are nearly always caused by the racing of the screw;
 that the propeller is often reft of it's blades or torn off itself by it's cratic
 notions that the pounding of the bow las she rises and falls causes strain and leak and sometimes collapse, and that , the oscillations due to an abnormally low center of gravity in an unladen l vessel tend to cause her to turn turtle l -the extent of the peril to human life , can be readily imagined.
 l The passage of the North Atlantic in midwinter in q cargo tramp is an ex- perience of which the mapority of shore l dwellers can form no conception. In In many cases, notably of ships flying : European flags, they are altogether un- ] dermanned, and they face the ocean $ l fury with inadequate crews at time , when weather conditions would dictate : the augmenting of the personal rather r than otherwise. The intense cold of the r northern seas in these months grip the Ivessel at the outset, and the labor at- t tendant upon every phase of shipboard 3 life is doubled thereby. The rolling of D lIle NSSSSl, Wltll thC SICdt 2 height above water line and the imper- l feet immerson of the screw, endangers ) the lives and limbs of the crew in their g employment about the slippery decks, l, for if they relax their hold on some sta- l tionary object they are liable to be 3 thrown across the decks and injured, il
 not killed. On the other hand, the over- l loaded craft wallows in the seas and < her low freeboard and lack of buoy : ancy allows the sea to flood her, so thai t it is often impossible for food to be I cooked for days. or for sleep to be ob- 3 tained. as bulwarks are demolished r compartments battered and hulls l strained so that constant work at the