New-York tribune., 1911-12-24

! would have seen the Governor towing
astern with rope about him.
What was he doing?"
Seeing for himself how the new pat
ent log worked"
The late Lord Inverclyde. while he was
Mr.. George Burns, had Mr.. Ismay's un-
wearled patience in looking into the
minutiae of ship-life which concern the
efficiency of the ship and the comfort of
the passengers. | was with him on the
Campania from Liverpool to New York.
He ransacked the ship for faults and de-
fects. He overhauled every department;
saw for himself how II was organized
and how il worked, talked with the pas
sengers, explored the galley and its
eouipment, examined tho fittings Of the
cabins, tested the service on each deck,
listened TO the stewards and cross-ex-
smined them, and so on. He asked me TO
make list Of things as they occurred to
me and send il to him in Liverpool;
which I did. The results Of his work
were evident enough next time crossed
on the Campana or on the Lucania, her
sister ship.
. II was ] think. the voyage on which
| the Lucana broke every record; the
wrong way. We had tremendous head
gales and seas for five days, ending In a
hurricane blowing 100 miles an hour ior
sixteen hours. That was not in Mr..
Burns's department. I spent most OF
the time in Captain McKay's cabin
watching the storm: a magnificent spec
tacle Of color and wild motion. The
cabin was forty feet or more above the
ocean level, and to look at the foaming
summit OF those huge hurricane waves
YOU had to look from the cabin windows
upward The shortest days run ever
known, the lowest average speed. the
longest run from Liverpool to New York,
these were among the Lucania's
achievements on that Journey: and the
lowest barometrical reading ever known
In the North Atlantic A tube barometer
hung in the cabin, registering down TO
81, or 26 and a fraction. but the mercury
went down out of sight and nobody ever
knew the actual reading. The ship could
neither 60 ahead nor lie to. l asked the
| ca plain what would happen II he Just
turned the engines over. You snail
see" ne said: and ordered half reVoiu-
! ton. The ship swung to her course ana
) forged a few yards ahead, imperceptibly,
and what we saw was the solid green
Atlantic coming aboard and up to the
cabin itself. burying everything forward
and stopping just short Of the bridge.
CAPTAIN Mckay looked at the enveloping
mass of water, and smilingly at me ana
asked. "Will that do?" In the ,anvas
screen on the bridge are bull s-eyes Of
! convex glass two inches thick or more.
/ One Of them was cracked by the tail or
! q wave, and that was the sum OF all
the damage TO the ship by gale ana
! hurricane together. And some years
later they burnt her to death In the
dock at Liverpool, poor thing.
admit that / regret the days when
| an Atlantic voyage meant weeks
respite from the tumult of life on shore
Another man Of genius, NJ. Marconi' mas
despoiled us of that with his wireless
telesrams: which surely might be called
Norconims instead of that unmanage-
able word Marconigrams. With The
| Cunard Bulletin" on the breakfast table
and dispatches all day long, private ana
public, no repose of mind is possible.
They NAV bring, and do bring, tragedies
with them. haf left New York on the
Lusitania in 1907 just before the finan-
ciaI crisis had reached its full height or
depth. In the middle Of the Atlantic
came a wireless message from New York
| TO an unknown man announcing the fail
ure of the Knickerbocker Trust Com
! many. The unknown man mentioned 1t
7 casually in the smoking room, and 1t
was repeated to the late Duchess Of Man
chester in the saloon. She threw up her
arms:
"My God. Everything / have in the
world is in the Knickerbocker Trust"
! A dispatch was sent TO her lawyers In
New York, and next day came the an
swer:
ct is true your securities are In the
| Knickerbocker, but they are III the sdle
deposit vaults and you lose nothing by
the failure"
4 happy ending, but what kind of
twenty-four hours must tho Duchess
have passed between the receipt Of the
| two messages?
Tout pdSse, tout ldsSe, says the French
proverb, but who has yet got quite used
| 10 the coming Of one of these mysteri-
Gus missives out of the sea and out of the
air; commoh as they now are and put TO
common uses? A message OF goodby or
of welcome-but that is nothing There
was a lady on the Mauretania who for
three days exchanged greetings with
friend on another ship on the same
course, but slower; greetings, perhaps,
of something more than friendship; a
wireless and harmless Irritation.
c.. W. 5.