The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-01-15

food. There was no way out of it.
He was going to get black eye.
Then there was the bonus on coal
saving that the company paid TO him
and the chief engineer. That was
gone, too
And there was another little bunch
! of figures in his head. 1t dealt with
I minutes and seconds of a degree of
| latitude. When he caught the sun
| that day at noon. those figures made
I him order the course of the ship
swung just a mite northerIy. 1t was
tiny change--bUt it meant that he
i'WaS little shy of his bulls eve.
Such a little, little swing of the
wheel wouldn't have meant anything
to a sailing ship or a slow tramp or
freight steamship. To the captain of
| the IO0-fOOt ship, jumping along at
/ twenty-five land miles an hour. it
meant that while his ship had made
grand daily runs. some ocean drift or
uncalculated wind had drifted him
south bTOadside. and now he would
. have TO go twenty-five miles more than
usual 10 make port. twenty-five miles
extra distance in a ship running
/ twenty-five miles an hour means an
hour extra time. That means not only
an imperilled speed record, but an
hours extra expense at the rate of a
/ thousand dollars a day. In coal alone
. that extra hour was going to mean
nearly sixty dollars
How the passengers would have
] wondered had they known, when they
disembaTked with cheers and laughter
after passing the usual resolution of
( ferVent gratitude to the captain, how
little attention he paid to their emo
d. ton. and how his mind was taken up
with violent distaste of the interview
with the owners.
"a Few Tons of CoaI.~
What" they would have asked.
Bothering about "A few tons of coal
more or less and d ridiculous twenty
i've miles extra, after he has taken us
vastly important $50 first-class pas
. sehgeTs ana almost as important 195
Second-clasS passengers and LOO
steerage passengers, not to forget the
small army Of 500 crew. safely over
one-eighth of the worlds circumfer-
ence. swapping us like a bolt through
gales and smashing seas. and never
losing rivet not 10 mention a life?'' |
Yes He was bOthering about the few
tons Of coal and the few extra miles of
run and host of other things The
Sate completion of the voyage didn't
raise his spirits to any seventh sea |
heaven. He had made two hundred
such safe vOya ges before The running
OF a big ship is not sea adventure
any more. and the owners look over its
books with the cold. calculating COM
mercial eyes Of business men a diff
ference of a few hundred dollars in the 1
cost or voyage means lot to a com
pauy that owns almost two hundred /
steamships, as his line does It /
wouldn't take long TO run annual ex- |
penses up appallinEly if the counting
room ashore didn't demand minute ac- /
countings from each vessel
The passengers on a liner see only |
IHe snow SIde-the gold lace Side-Of /
their captain To them he Is the ro- ,
mantle mariner. His real work is tbe ]
work which they never see His first :
officer could probably navigate the
ship thoroughly well If the captain
didn't show his face on the bridge be (
tween ports.
The Business Man of the Sea.
The thing that makes the liner cap
tain supremacy important 10 his own
ers is that he is a business man Of the
highest type-a man who can be en-
trusted with me equivalent Of "a block
OF busy buildings with an their OCcli-
pants. be turned loose from al author
lty and ass iStanCC and manage the va !
NED and .nnumerable concerns of the
whole mass without losing n splinter or
penny.
The estate that he takes our To sea
is nearly as long as TWO city blocks. tt
has holds that could hide the cellars I
sUb-CeilaTs ana ground floors of hair a I
dozen WAREHOUSES It has from five to
seven stories, and a single one Of these !
Slories-tne promenade deck-has !
walking space equal TO any sidewalk of
Fifth avenue between any two cross
streets.
The cost of maintenance for that /
piece Of portable property for one sin
gle trip is six times as big as the total |
wages paid 10 the force of a twelve
story steel skycrapeT in one month
Every forty-twO hours the monster
swallows as much coal as a sIxyscraper
uses in thirty days
For very detail in this vast mass
from the woes of a sueerage passenger
who has had his pocket picked of tup- !