The Republican journal., 1910-02-17
THE REPUBLICAN JOURNAL THURSDAY FEBRUARY II 1910

She was built exclusively for pas
senger boat between Louisville and New
Orleans and has won high name with
the travelling community for her many
good qualities. The Pacific is first-class
boat in point of size and steam power,
having capacity for the burden of 1900
tons and cabin accommodations for l2J
passengers with staterooms. Her ex-
IRENE length is nearly 300 feet with 40
feet breadth of beam and feet depth of
hold The model of the huh is very easy
and quite sharp at the bow and stern,
with good bearings, which makes her
buoyant on the water, and her immense
power propels her against the currents
of the Mississippi with the speed of the
wind, and with an ease of locomotion
that is both agreeable and astonishing
to the traveller. The cabin of the Pacific
is both rich and neat in style; the build
semi Gothic and Corinthian, with lofty
sky-lights; and her staterooms very large
and convenient, each being provided with
every convenience the most fastidious
could desire, including washstands, dres-
sing cases, mirrors and all else required.
She has also nursery, servants room,
bath room, barber shop, etc., making
her in all requirements equal to the best
arranged hotels. The furniture of the
cabin is of the best materials, rich, beau
tiful and durable, while in her entire out
fit, beds, and bedding, no expense has
been spared to make her NEST desirable
boat for the Southern travel and the
comfortable accommodation of families. !"
Charles Dickens travelled on the river
boats fifteen years before this time, was
n nj ,,fL re
described, and besides was evidently pref
udiced against everything American.
He made the trip from Pittsburg to Gin
cinnati in the steamer Messenger, and said
in his american Notes" of this class of
boats: I'm the first place, they have no
mast, cordage, tackle, rigging, or other
such boatlike gear; nor have they any
thing in their shape at all calculated to
/ remind one of boats head, stern, sides
or keel. Except that they are in the
water, and display a couple of paddle
boxes, they might be intended, for any
thing that appears to the contrary, to
perform some unknown service, high and
dry, upon mountain top. There is no
visible deck, even-nothing but. a long,
black, ugly roof, covered with burnt-out
feathery sparks; above which tower two
iron chimneys, and a hoarse escape valve,
i and glass steerage house. Then, in order
as the eye descends towards the water,
are the sides, and doors and windows of
the staterooms, jumbled as oddly togeth-
er as though they formed a small street
built by the varying tastes of dozen
men. The whole is supported on beams
and pillars resting on dirty barge, hu,
a few inches above the waters edge: anC
! in the narrow space between this upper
structure and this barge's deck are the
furnace fires and machinery, open at the
sides to every wind that blows, and every
storm of rain it drives along its path"
There is much more of the same sort
the three meals day are condemned
"at dinner, there is nothing to drink
upon the table but great jugs of colo
waite" and Dickens fellow passengers
are depicted as ''the melancholy ghosts
of departed bookkeepers who had faller
dead at their DESKS" etc. c. A. P.