CHAPTER XVII
MORE STEAMBOATING
The night before Thanksgiving Mr. Ackerman and Dick arrived at Coventryand it was difficult to believe the change wrought in the New York boy.Not only was his face round, rosy and radiant with happiness but alongwith a new manliness had stolen a gentler bearing and a courtesy thathad not been there when he had set forth to school.
"Why, you must have put on ten pounds, Dick!" cried Mr. Tolman, shakinghands with his young guest after greeting the steamboat magnate.
"It is eleven pounds, sir," laughed Dick. "We have bully eats at schooland all you want of them."
The final phrase had a reminiscent ring as if it harked back to a timewhen three ample meals were a mirage of the imagination.
"Well, I am glad to hear you have done justice to them and encouragedthe cook," was Mr. Tolman's jocular reply. "Now while you stay here youmust cheer on our cook in the same fashion. If you don't we shall thinkyou like New Haven better."
"I guess there is no danger of that," put in Mr. Ackerman. "Dick seemshollow down to his ankles. There is no filling him up; is there, boy?"
"I couldn't eat that third ice-cream you offered me yesterday," was thehumorous retort.
"I hope you've saved some room for to-morrow's dinner," Mrs. Tolmaninterrupted, "for there will be mince pie and plum pudding and I don'tknow what not. And then there is the turkey--we ordered an extra largeone on purpose."
Dick and Steve exchanged a sheepish grin.
"Well, it is jolly to see you good people," Mr. Tolman declared, as heushered the visitors into the living room, where a bright fire burned onthe hearth. "Our boys have done well, haven't they, Ackerman? I don'tknow which is to win the scholarship race--the steamboats or therailroads."
"We could compare marks," Stephen suggested.
"That would hardly be fair," Mr. Ackerman objected quickly, "for thesteamboats did not start even with the railroads in this contest. Dickhas had to put in a lot of hours with a tutor to make up for the work hemissed at the beginning of the year. He has been compelled to bone downlike a beaver to go ahead with his class; but he has succeeded, haven'tyou, sonny?"
"I hope I have," was the modest retort.
"Furthermore," went on Mr. Ackerman, "there are other things besidescholarship to be considered in this bargain. We want fine, manly boysas well as wise ones. Conduct counts for a great deal, you know."
Stephen felt himself coloring.
"There have been no black marks on Dick's record thus far. How aboutyours, Steve?" asked the New York man.
"I--er--no. I haven't had any black marks, either," responded Stephen,with a gulp of shame.
"That is splendid, isn't it!" commented Mr. Ackerman. "I wasn't lookingfor them. You have too fine a father to be anything but a square boy."
Once more Stephen knew himself to be blushing. If they would only talkabout something else!
"Are you going to finish your steamboat story for us while you arehere?" inquired he with sudden inspiration.
"Why, I had not thought of doing any steamboating down here," laughedthe capitalist. "Rather I came to help the Pilgrims celebrate theirfirst harvest."
"But even they had to come to America by boat," suggested Dorismischievously.
"I admit that," owned the New Yorker. "And what is more, they probablywould have come in a steamboat if one had been running at the time."
"What was the first American steamship to cross the Atlantic, Ackerman?"questioned Mr. Tolman when they were all seated before the library fire.
"I suppose the _Savannah_ had that distinction," was the reply. "She wasbuilt in New York in 1818 to be used as a sailing packet; but she hadside wheels and an auxiliary engine, and although she did not make theentire trans-Atlantic distance by steam she did cover a part of itunder steam power. Her paddle wheels, it is interesting to note, were soconstructed that they could be unshipped and taken aboard when they werenot in use, or when the weather was rough. I believe it took hertwenty-seven days to make the trip from Savannah to Liverpool and eightyhours of that time she was using her engine. Although she made severaltrips in safety it was quite a while before the American public wassufficiently convinced of the value of steam to build other steamships.A few small ones appeared in our harbors, it is true, but they came fromNorway or England; they made much better records, too, than anythingpreviously known, the _Sirius_ crossing in 1838 in nineteen days, andthe _Great Western_ in fifteen. In the meantime shipbuilders on bothsides of the Atlantic were studying the steamboat problem and busybrains in Nova Scotia and on the Clyde were working out an answer to thepuzzle. One of the most alert of these brains belonged to Samuel Cunard,the founder of the steamship line that has since become world famous. InMay, 1840, through his instrumentality, the _Unicorn_ set out fromEngland for Boston arriving in the harbor June third after a voyage ofsixteen days. When we reflect that she was a wooden side-wheeler, notmuch larger than one of our tugboats, we marvel that she ever put in herappearance. Tidings of her proposed trip had already preceded her, andwhen after much anxious watching she was sighted there was the greatestenthusiasm along the water front, the over-zealous populace who wishedto give her a royal welcome setting off a six-pounder in her honor thatshattered to atoms most of her stained glass as she tied up at thedock."
His audience laughed.
"You see," continued the capitalist, "the ship came in answer to acircular sent out by our government to various shipbuilders asking bidsfrom swift and reliable boats to carry our mails to England. Cunardimmediately saw the commercial advantages of such an opportunity, andnot having money enough to back the venture himself the Halifax man wentto Scotland where he met Robert Napier, a person who like himself hadhad wide experience in shipping affairs. Both men were enthusiastic overthe project; before long the money necessary for the undertaking wasraised, and the British and North American Royal Mail Steam PacketCompany, with a line of four ships, was awarded the United StatesGovernment contract. These ships were very significantly named: the_Britannia_ in honor of England, the _Arcadia_ as a compliment to Mr.Cunard's Nova Scotia home, the _Caledonia_ in memory of Napier's Scotchancestry, and the _Columbia_ out of regard to America. And in passing itis rather interesting to recall that in homage to these pioneer ships ithas become a tradition of the Cunard Line to use names that terminate inthe letter _a_ for all the ships that have followed them. For, you mustremember, it was this modest group of steam packets that were theancestors of such magnificent boats as the _Mauretania_ and_Lusitania_."
"There was some difference!" interrupted Stephen.
"Well, rather! Had you, however, told Samuel Cunard then that suchmammoth floating hotels were possible he would probably not havebelieved you. He had task enough on his hands to carry the mails;transport the few venturesome souls that dared to cross the sea; andcompete with the many rival steamship lines that sprang up on both sidesof the ocean as soon as some one had demonstrated that trans-Atlantictravel was practical. For after Cunard had blazed the path there wereplenty of less daring persons ready to steal from him the fruits of hisvision and courage. From 1847 to 1857 the Ocean Steamship Companycarried mails between New York and Bremen, and there was a very popularline that ran from New York to Havre, up to the period of the Civil War.Among the individual ships none, perhaps, was more celebrated than the_Great Eastern_, a vessel of tremendous length, and one that more nearlyapproached our present-day liners as to size. Then there was the CollinsLine that openly competed with the Cunard Line; and to further increasetrans-Atlantic travel, in 1855 Cornelius Vanderbilt, ever at the fore innovel projects, began operating lines of steamships not only to Englandand France but to Bremen."
Mr. Ackerman paused a moment.
"By 1871 there was an American line between Philadelphia and Liverpool.In the meantime, ever since 1861, there had been a slow but steadyadvance in ocean shipbuilding. Although iron ships had graduallyreplaced wooden ones the side-wheeler was still in vogue, no bettermethod of locomotion having been di
scovered. When the change from thisprimitive device to the screw propeller came it was a veritable leap innaval architecture. Now revolutions in any direction seldom receive awelcome and just as the conservatives had at first hooted down the ideaof iron ships, asserting they would never float, so they now decried theuse of the screw propeller. Indeed there was no denying that thisinnovation presented to shipbuilders a multitude of new and balkingproblems. While the clipper ships had greatly improved the designs ofvessels the stern was still their weakest point and now, in addition tothis already existing difficulty, came the new conundrums presented bythe pitch, or full turn of the thread, in the screw propeller; also thechurning of the current produced by the rapidly whirling wheel, whichwas found to retard the speed of the ship very materially. Valiantlyengineers wrestled with one after another of these enigmas until theyconquered them and put shipbuilding on the upward path where it has beenever since. In time steel ships replaced the cruder vessels of iron;finer types of engines were worked out; the wireless and the manyelectrical devices which herald approaching foes and announce thepresence of icebergs have been invented; until now the ocean liner ispractically safe from all perils except fogs, icebergs and submarines."
He stopped a moment with eyes fixed on the glowing logs that crackled onthe hearth.
"Meanwhile," he went on, "comfort aboard ship has progressed to luxury.Better systems of ventilation, more roomy sleeping quarters, morewindows and improved lighting facilities have been installed. Thegeneral arrangement of the ship has also been vastly improved since thedays when the high bulwark and long deckhouse were in use. Now ironrailings allow the sea to wash back and forth in time of storm, and inconsequence there is less danger of vessels being swamped by the waves.Then there are watertight doors and bulkheads, double bottoms to thehulls, and along with these more practical advances have come others ofa more healthful and artistic trend. The furniture is better; thedecoration of the cabins and saloons prettier and more harmonious; therehas been more hygienic sanitation. When the _Oceanic_ of the White StarLine was built in 1870 she had a second deck, and this novel feature wasadopted broadcast and eventually ushered in the many-deck liners now inuse. The _Servia_, built in 1881, was the first steel ship and theadvantage of its greater elasticity was instantly seen. Builders werewise enough to grasp the fact that with the increasing length ofvessels steel ships would be able to stand a greater strain. Little bylittle the gain went on in every direction. Nevertheless, in spite ofthe intelligence of the shipbuilders, it was long before trans-Atlanticnavigators had the courage to trust themselves entirely to their enginesand discard masts; although they shifted to steel ones instead of thoseof iron or wood, they still persisted in carrying them."
He smiled as he spoke.
"When the twin-screw propeller made its appearance it brought with itgreater speed and there was a revival of the old racing spirit. Betweenthe various shipping lines of all nations the contest for size andswiftness has raged ever since. Before the Great War, Germany had a veryextensive collection of large and rapid liners, many of them built onthe Clyde, that fought to surpass the Cunard ships. The White Star Linealso took a hand in the game and built others. In the contest, alas,America has been far behind until gradually she has let other countriesslip in and usurp the major proportion of ocean commerce. It is apitiful thing that we should not have applied our skill and wealth ofmaterial to building fine American steamship lines of our own instead ofletting so many of our tourists turn their patronage to ships of foreignnations. Perhaps if the public were not so eager for novelty, and soconstantly in search for the newest, the largest and the fastest boats,we should be content to make our crossings in the older and less gaudyships, which after all are quite as seaworthy. But we Americans mustalways have the superlative, and therefore many a steamer has had to bescrapped simply because it had no palm gardens, no swimming pools, noshore luxuries. We have not, however, wholly neglected navalconstruction for we have many fine steamships, a praiseworthy lot ofbattleships and cruisers and some very fine submarines. I hope andbelieve that the time will come when our merchant marine will once againstand at the front as it did in the days of the clipper ships. Ourcommerce reaches out to every corner of the earth and why should we relyon other countries to transport our goods?"
"I suppose there are no pirates now, are there, Mr. Ackerman?" askedDick, raising his eyes expectantly to the capitalist's face.
"I am afraid there are very few, Dick boy," returned the elder mankindly. "I suppose that is somewhat of a disappointment to you. Youwould have preferred to sail the seas in the days when every small linercarried her guns as a defence against raiders and was often forced touse them, too. But when international law began to regulate traffic onthe high seas and the ocean thoroughfare ceased to be such a desertedone pirates went out of fashion, and every nation was granted equalrights to sail the seas unmolested. It was because this freedom wasmenaced by German submarines in the late war and our privilege to travelby water threatened that our nation refused to tolerate suchconditions. A code of humane laws that had been established for theuniversal good was being broken and we could not permit it. For you mustremember that now there are almost as many laws on the ocean as on theland. There are rules for all kinds of vessels, of which there are a fargreater variety than perhaps you realize. Not only have we steamships,cruisers, and battleships but we have schooners, barques, brigs,tugboats, dredgers, oil-tankers, turret ships for freight, cargo boats,steam tramps, coalers, produce ships, ice-breakers, train ferries, steamtrawlers, fire boats, river boats, harbor excursion boats, coasters,whalebacks, steam yachts, launches and lake steamers. Each of these iscarefully classified and has its particular traffic rules, and inaddition to these is obliged to obey certain other general marine lawsto which all of them are subject, in order that travel by water may bemade safe."
"Don't all ships have to be inspected, too?" asked Stephen.
"Yes; and not only are they inspected but to protect the lives of theirpassengers and crew, as well as preserve their cargo, they must adhereto specified conditions. The number of passengers and crew is regulatedby law, as is the amount of the cargo. Ocean liners, for example, musthave aboard a certain number of lifeboats, rafts, belts, lifepreservers, fire extinguishers, lines of hose; and the size of all theseis carefully designated. There must be frequent drills in manning theboats; the fire hose must be tested to see that it works and is inproper condition; and in thick weather the foghorns must be sounded atregular intervals. There is no such thing now as going to sea inhaphazard fashion and trusting to luck. Everything that can be done forthe safety of those who travel the ocean must be done."
He paused a moment, then added:
"And in the meanwhile, that every protection possible shall be offeredto ships, we have been as busy on the land as on the water and haveestablished a code of laws to govern our coasts, harbors and rivers.Government surveys have charted the shores of all countries so that nowthere are complete maps that give not only the coast line but also theoutlying islands, rocks and shoals that might be a menace to ships. Itis no longer possible for a State bordering on the sea to put up a lowbuilding at the water's edge and set a few candles in the windows as wasdone back in the year eighteen hundred."
Both the boys laughed.
"We can laugh now," assented Mr. Ackerman with a smile, "but in thosedays I fancy it was no laughing matter. Even with all our up-to-datedevices there are wrecks; and think of the ships that must have gonedown before charts were available, lighthouses and bell buoys in vogue,wireless signals invented and the coast patrol in operation. I shudderto picture it. Sailing the seas was a perilous undertaking then, Iassure you. Even the first devices for safety were primitive. TheArgand lamp of 1812 was not at all powerful and the lenses used were farfrom perfect. Foghorns were operated by hand or by horse power and werenot strong enough to be heard at any great distance. Bell buoys wereunknown although there were such things as bell-boats which wereanchored in dangerous spots and rung by
the wash of the waves. Therewere lightships, too, but more often than not their feeble light wasobscured or unnoticed and they were run down by the ships they sought toprotect. Altogether there was room for improvement at every point andslowly but surely it came. After the Daboll trumpet, whistle and sirenhad been tried finer horns operated by steam or power engines supplantedthem until now all along our coasts and inland streams signals ofspecified strength have been installed, a commission deciding just whatsize signals shall be used and where they shall be placed. There arelighthouses of prescribed candle power; automatic flashlights andwhistling buoys; coastguard stations with carefully drilled crews; allregulated by law and matters of compulsion. If men and ships are lostnow it is because it is beyond human power to help it."
"There are facts about the water that are impossible to modify,"interrupted Mr. Tolman, "and I suppose we shall never be able wholly toeliminate the dangers growing out of them. There are for example silencezones where, because of the nature of air currents or atmosphericconditions, no sounds can be heard. Often a foghorn comparatively nearat hand will belch forth its warning and its voice be swallowed up inthis strange stillness. Many a calamity has occurred that could only beaccounted for in this way. Man is ingenious, it is true, but he is notomniscient and in the face of some of the caprices of nature he ispowerless."
Mr. Ackerman rose and stood with his back to the fire.
"And now," went on Mr. Tolman, addressing Stephen and Dick, "I shouldsay you two had had quite a lecture on steamboating and should move thatyou both go to bed."
Quickly Mr. Ackerman interrupted him.
"I should amend the motion by suggesting that we all go to bed," laughedhe. "I am quite as tired as the boys are."
The amendment was passed, the motion carried, and soon the entire Tolmanfamily was wrapped in sleep.