New-York tribune., 1911-12-24
Anglo-American Memories
Gil.
BEING MEMORIES OF OCEAN MYs TERIEs.
Copyright. 1911, by George ". smancy)

Copyright, 1911, by
London. December q.
4 ship OF $4,000 tons driven through
the Atlantic by turbine engines of 10000
horsepower at twenty-five knots an hour
each hour Of the twenty-four and every
day Of the voyage; and you hardly know
whether the ship is under way or not.
That ia the Mauretania. II is true OF
the two voyages l have made in her
during tho last two months, and 1t Is
true, l suppose, Of all her voyages IN
tolerable weather. | think Il idle to say
of any ship that she neither rolls nor
pitches in a heavy sea. When the ocean
removes itself bodily from under the
forefoot Of a vessel, small or great,
she will pitch, and with the heave Of
great wave abeam or beneath her
counter she must roll. II is all a ques-
tion Of how much II is also question
of good manners; which the Mauretania
has and the Lusitania has. Neither
finishes off with a jerk Both have a
suavity Of movement which, If lou hap
pen 70 be a good sailor, is delightful,
I'd. II you are not, reduces your discom-
fort t. a minimum. Besides, there are
people so constituted that they know
how TO be seasick when the waters ore
a level plain With them II Is not
motion only, but nerves. ! knew lady
who yielded to these panic terrors the
moment she set foot on the deck of
ship still fast 10 the landing stage. To
be strictly accurate, she went straight
to her cabin and her bed and there re-
mained for the voyage, no matter what
the weather; no matter though the YES
sci we're
As idle as a painted ship
Upon painted ocean.
Neither marine architects nor ships
doctors can deal with such cases as that.
Seasickness. however is not an at
tractive subject, and pass from it with
a single anecdote. Sir James Anderson.
forty years an officer in the Cunard ser
vice and finally commodore of the
Cunard feet, once confessed that he had
more than once been uneasy in crossing
the Channel from Dover 10 Calais. If
that be any comfort TO anybody.
But l have been at sea in many diff
ferent kinds of vessels. and / offer my
landsman's testimony to landsmen like
myself In respect Of naval and marine
architecture 1t is period of transition.
T.. L. 6 IL l. ,r
also q period of cross-Currents or Earring
influences. For a long time the sea-
going public demanded speed. One line
after another held the blue ribbon and
then yielded il up to another line. To-
day the Mauretania and the Lusitania
have 10 rivals. More than ever before,
ships have become so many commercial
expressions. No other line takes up the
Cunard challenge. The White Star is
content with bigness. The North German
crossed on the Kaiser Wilhelm II in
1905 one Of her officers told me they
were building, or about to build, new
ship:
Better than this, suppose"
I'VE consider IT impossible to build
better ship than this. The Kronprin-
zessin will be in every respect an exact
reproduction Of the Kaiser Wilhelm IL"
Even 10 the seasick color of her
saloon?"
Not an amiable question, I fear, but
the German conceit is sometimes irri-
tating. l believe, however, that the new
ship is as like the old as they could make
her; down 10 the zinc bathtubs. But
even a zinc bath Is better than none,
and on the China, the first Cunard screw,
built in the COS, there was no bathtub.
and the sanitary arrangements were un-
speakable.
must say again that the TeutOuic,
built in 1899, was the first modern ship.
the first example Of modern beauty and
luxury; Mr.. Ismay's creation. The pres
ent Mr.. Bruce Jsmay has relinquished
some OF his fathers ambitions. The
fathers genius was all-embracing. The
s as is administrative and financial. He
has a shrewd knowledge Of the public
taste, and the ships he launches conform
10 the law Of supply and demand. The
public wants, or is taught to want,
Turkish baths and racket courts and
gymnasiums, and these Mr.. Ismay gives
them. The Olympic is a clubhouse. We
had one of her passengers on the Maure
tania, VINO complained that the spaces
on the White Star monster were too
vast; so vast that the decks always
seemed empty, and you were lost in the
labyrinth of passages and saloons.
might perhaps have seen for myself
what the Olympic was like if she had not
had a difficulty with the Hawke and re-
tired for a time from the Atlantic ser
vice.
II would be interesting to know how
Mr.. Ismay or Mr.. Booth, the present
Cunard chairman, finds out what the
public wants, or whether they first Gre
ate the want and then satisfy It, Old Sir
John Burns, who for long time was the
Cunard company, decreed that the pub
lie should want what he wanted;-at any
rate, they should have that. and nothing
else. He ragged against innovations.