concerts, balls, dinner-parties, and extra luxuries at the regular
meals. Entertainment is provided for the steerage passengers, and a
special _menu_ is furnished for the festal days. On such occasions,
too, the ships are gayly decorated with bunting from stem to stern.
Another unique and pleasant feature of the voyage on the French line
is the “Captain’s Dinner.” This takes place just previous to the
termination of the trip.
On the British lines Sunday is suitably observed; the captain, in
full uniform, supported by his officers, reads the Church of England
services, to which all on board are invited. American and British
holidays are also observed in a fitting manner, the vessels being
always “dressed” for the occasion. These lines also have a parting
dinner, usually one or two evenings before arrival in port.
[Illustration: Revenue Officer Boarding, New York Bay.]
All incoming steamers are signalled off Fire Island or Sandy Hook,
their arrival is telegraphed to the Quarantine station and the
ship-news office, and in about three hours the vessel reaches
Quarantine from Fire Island, or about one hour from Sandy Hook. At
Quarantine the health officer boards her, and if it is found that she
has no case of contagious disease on board she is permitted to proceed
to her dock, which she reaches in about one hour and a half, including
the time of examination by the health officer; but if she has any
serious case on board she is detained at Quarantine until she receives
orders from the health officer to land her passengers. As soon as the
vessel is reported inside Sandy Hook the revenue cutter starts down
the bay to meet her, with the customs officers on board. The boarding
officer places several staff officers on board, who go immediately
to the saloon, where declarations are made and signed by the saloon
passengers as to the contents of their trunks, etc., and all baggage is
searched on arrival of the vessel at her dock, when those who attempt
“monkeying” with the customs officials will find out that the little
trick does not pay.
Meantime, how do the steerage folk get on?
Mention has been made of the British Government bill of fare. This was
instituted when clipper ships were in vogue. It was ordered that a
minimum weekly allowance of raw food should be provided for every adult
third-class passenger as follows:
3-1/2 pounds bread, or biscuit, not inferior in quality to navy
biscuit; 1 pound flour; 1-1/2 pound oatmeal; 1-1/2 pound rice; 1-1/2
pound peas; 1-1/4 pound beef; 1 pound pork; 2 pounds potatoes; 2
ounces tea; 1 pound sugar; 1/2 ounce mustard; 1/4 ounce ground black
pepper; 2 ounces salt; 1 gill vinegar.
A government inspector saw to it that these items or their equivalents
were provided upon the departure of every ship carrying third-class
passengers, and that no ship went to sea without being provisioned
for thirty days. The allowance, however, proved not to be altogether
generous, and many passengers brought stores of their own along. In
any event, each passenger had to prepare his own meals at the cook’s
galley, for the number of cooks furnished was always insufficient. The
kitchen is never commodious at the best, aboard ship, and it needs no
imagination to picture the struggle of immigrants, one against another,
for a turn at the fire. The government requisition is still in force,
but it is substantially a dead letter, for not only the British but all
European steamship companies now provide ample fare properly cooked and
served, for all steerage passengers.
A young man who crossed in the steerage last year described his fare
to the writer, thus: “At breakfast,” he said, “we usually had oatmeal
porridge and molasses, with coffee in plenty, and rolls and butter.
This was varied by hash instead of porridge on some days, or perhaps an
Irish stew; but fresh baked rolls and butter were always in abundance.
There was always soup at dinner, and some boiled beef, pork, or fish
with potatoes and bread. Supper did not amount to much, but there was
plenty of plain, good stuff to eat. Roast beef and plum duff were
served at Sunday’s dinner.”
This food was served to the steerage passengers by stewards, but there
was no placing of dishes opposite the passenger’s plate. The general
meal was set down in the middle of the table, and “help yourself” was
the order of the day. The steerage passengers do not cook their own
food now, but they have to provide their own cups, plates, and other
utensils, as well as their own bedding.
All captains of passenger steamships are scrupulously attentive to the
needs of their steerage passengers. Not a day passes that they do not
make a personal inspection of this department, and they are always
approachable in the event of complaints arising on the part of the
poorest travellers. It is related of one old-time commander—Captain
John Mirehouse—that in order to assure himself of the proper quality
and preparation of the steerage food, he invariably had his lunch
served from the steerage galley at the dinner hour; and he used to
declare that his lunches were as wholesome and palatable as he could
desire.
It must not be supposed that steerage passengers are all immigrants.
Odd as it may seem, there are many world wanderers who cross and
recross in the steerage, who travel over great parts of the world,
and who, in their class, are as independent as the more luxuriously
accommodated cabin people. Besides these curious characters there
are Scottish carpenters and other mechanics who come over here for
a few months at a time to take advantage of higher wages, and who
return as they came when Christmas draws nigh. It will doubtless cause
astonishment to most readers to learn that when the Teutonic made her
last voyage to Europe, in December, 1890, she carried 1,400 passengers,
more than 1,000 of whom were in the steerage.
[Illustration: In the Steerage.]
The immigrant business has come to be so important a feature in
transatlantic passenger traffic, that it may not be uninteresting to
conclude this article with a few figures that show somewhat of its
growth and proportions, and also the method of handling the immigrants.
At least eighty-five per cent. of all immigration to the United States
comes through the port of New York. The Board of Immigration was not
established until 1847, and previous to that time records were rather
loosely kept. The official figures, however, have been obtained,[17]
showing that between 1783 and 1847, 1,063,567 immigrants came to this
country; between 1847 and 1873 there were 4,933,562; a marked falling
off in the annual average occurring during the War of the Rebellion;
between 1873 and 1890, inclusive, 4,910,864. Immigration was heaviest
in the years 1881, 1882, and 1883, the figures being 441,064; 455,450;
and 388,267, respectively. The greatest arrival of immigrants in any
one day was on May 11, 1887, when nearly 10,000 were landed at this
port. The greatest number ever brought by a single ship was 1,767,
by the Egypt, National line, in 1873. This good ship was destroyed
by fire, July, 1890, in midocean, on her way to the eastward, but
fortunately not a life was lost.
On the arrival of each vessel at her dock she is boarded by the
Immigration Department boarding officer, and the Customs inspector
and his assistants; the latter examine the immigrants’ baggage, and
sometimes add considerable to Uncle Samuel’s bank account in the way of
duties or the confiscation of smuggled articles. Their baggage is then
checked and placed on board the transfer boats and barges, which convey
them to the Barge Office, where they are examined by a medical staff
and then passed to the registration department in that building; here
they give their name, age, occupation, nationality, and destination;
if they appear as though they were liable to become a public charge,
in compliance with an Act of Congress, they are returned, by the same
vessel on which they arrived, to the place from which they came. But an
opportunity is given to their friends, if any should call, to guarantee
that they will not become a public charge, and they are then allowed to
leave the department in the custody of their friends. Parties seeking
friends call at the information bureau, and if they satisfy the clerk
as to their identity they are allowed to take their friends away. On
leaving the steamship checks are given to them for their baggage, and
it is stored at the Barge Office free of charge, and kept till called
for.
There is a railroad ticket office in the Barge Office, where all the
trunk lines are represented by one general agent, a sort of pool, and
here the immigrant can secure tickets to any point and have baggage
checked to destination; and at no other place can tickets be procured
at such low rates, nor can anyone but an immigrant get such a low rate.
Each immigrant is allowed 150 pounds of baggage free, and the railroad
companies transfer them and their baggage from the Barge Office to
their respective depots free of charge.
A temporary hospital is located in the Barge Office, where immigrants
not seriously ill are kept, and those who may have any serious illness
are sent to hospitals under contract with the department for such
patients.
Each steamship company was formerly required to pay to the United
States Treasury a head tax of $2.50 for each alien steerage passenger;
this fee was reduced to $1.00, and some years ago it was still further
reduced to fifty cents, the present rate. This tax goes to what is
known as the Immigrant Fund.
In conclusion I might truly say that the modern ocean steamship of
the great lines I have mentioned is the embodiment of the latest
achievements of science and art of this enlightened age. So recent are
many of the inventions that such a ship as the City of Paris or the
Majestic could not have been built ten years ago at any price. The
practical effect of all this to the traveller is to bring him very
much nearer to the Old World than his father was, and to make the time
spent in crossing the once dreaded ocean a delightful series of summer
holidays.
Footnotes:
[16] See the chapter on The Development of the Ocean Steamship.
[17] Through the courtesy of Mr. George W. Esslinger, assistant to
Captain John E. Moore, landing agent.
THE SHIP’s COMPANY.
BY LIEUTENANT J. D. JERROLD KELLEY, U. S. NAVY.
HAS STEAM RUINED THE GENUINE SAILORS OF STORY AND
SONG?—HAULING A LINER OUT OF THE LIVERPOOL DOCKS—THE TRAITS OF
MASTER-MARINERS—EDUCATION OF JUNIOR OFFICERS—A FIRE DRILL—STOWING THE
CARGO—DOWN THE CHANNEL IN A FOG—THE ROUTINE LIFE AT SEA—THE TRIALS OF
KEEPING WATCH—A BO’S’N’S RIGHT TO BLUSTER—STEERING BY STEAM—SCRUBBING
THE DECKS IN THE MIDDLE WATCHES—FORMALITIES OF INSPECTION—THE MAGIC
DOMAIN OF THE ENGINE-ROOM—PICTURESQUENESS OF THE STOKE-HOLE—MESSES OF
THE CREW—THE NOON OBSERVATION—LIFE AMONG THE CABIN PASSENGERS—BOAT
DRILL—PLEASURES TOWARD THE END OF THE VOYAGE—THE CONCERT—SCENES IN
THE SMOKING-ROOM—WAGERS ON THE PILOT-BOAT NUMBER—FIRE ISLAND LIGHT,
AND THE END OF THE VOYAGE.
When the breeze is piping free and the tide is running strong none
but a master-seaman may be trusted to haul out of the Liverpool docks
a great Atlantic liner. Should it be a leeward ebb, with the Mersey
spinning under a flurry of squalls and snarling in angry eddies, a
quick eye must mate a clear wit to make the trick a deft one. The
manœuvre is always a delight to the mariner, let bo’s’ns, hopelessly
spliced to such traditions as topsails reefed in stays bawl what they
may about the dead days of seamanship. For here are unfolded the
mysteries of the art, and here are exercised all the higher qualities
of the sailor, and just as much, believe me, as in the old times when
the gray piers and oozy quays were crowded to cheer our famous clippers
warping in and out to the music of barbaric “chanties.”
Beach-combers, shore-huggers—mere Abraham’s men—will tell you the
poetry is gone out of it all, and will, with much damning of their
eyes, and shifting of their quids, and hitching of their tarry
trousers, try to persuade you that steam has ruined the genuine sailors
of story and of song. But this is mere transpontine nonsense, for above
and beyond everything he who commands a ship, smoker or sailer, as it
may chance, must first of all be a seaman. The demands of modern sea
life have increased the responsibilities of the mariner, and in like
measure the professional attainments required are deeper, broader, and
higher than ever before.
What the task of hauling out is, you may best judge by noting the
bulk to be moved, for you can never measure properly the enormous
dimensions of these great steamers until you see them looming in their
true proportions above the walls, and undwarfed, as they are in the
open, by the frame of sea and sky. The bulwarks tower like the walls
of a fortress; the enormous decks sweep with a sheer knowing no broken
curve; the wheel-house lifts its windows above the life-boats, swarming
sternward like a school of pilot-fish; still higher the bridges, often
double-tiered, span and grip the sturdy stanchions; and dominating all,
the elliptical funnels rake jauntily, and the yardless spars taper till
they fine away at their shining trucks into graceful coach-whips.
Shipshape and Bristol fashion, point-device in paint and polish, the
massive hull glides over the quiet waters of the basin; you catch the
sheen of gleaming brasses, of glistening air-ports, of glazed white,
and lacquered black. Obedient as a broken colt to the touch of the
helm, quick in response as a high-bred dog in a leash to the guiding
hawsers, she moves calmly—fit exemplar of strength rightly tempered by
even will—toward the sharp turn where the gateway opens to the river.
Winches chatter noisily; windlasses clink, clink musically; capstans
rattle with slacking cables; jets of steam dart viciously; ripples
stream sternward to the bubbles of the foamless wake; the tremulous
minor, more a wail than a song, of the docking gangs working the
warps, answer the cheery “Yo heave-ohs” of the people on shipboard;
and the quick, sharp orders from the bridge are echoed by high-pitched
answers from the mates, watching with wary eyes everywhere. One screw
turns clumsily ahead, the other circles astern, and then the ship
swings easily, rounding the jagged corner in the hedge of stone with
a gentleness leaving feet to spare. The bow and stern enter fairly,
straight as a mason’s level, the open gateway; a strain is taken on
the line leading from the quarter to the pier end; a moment of rest,
of expectation, succeeded by one of doubt, follows, and then the hail
rings out blithely from the after-whaleback, “All clear, sir.”
The handle of the annunciator connected with the engine-room is jammed
to “hard astern;” “ding! ding!” rings the signal from below; the water
gushes in a turbulent torrent from the outboard deliveries, the engines
throb fiercely, backing with all their strength, and as the lines are
rendered, slacked, eased, let go, the steamer clears the pier-end with
a rush, shoots far into midstream, and thus begins, wrong end foremost,
her voyage westward. In the optimism of the moment the chief officer
and the bo’s’n grow garrulous upon the recondite subject of anchor
gear; the junior officers feel they quite deserve the good luck which
makes them the hustling, bustling mates of a crack racer; and maritime
Jack, still a little groggy and very much unwashed, blesses the stars
that have let begin another “v’yage with an ’arf crown left of his
hadvance,” and the prospects of “some bloomin’ American tobaccy” as
soon as he’s clear of the tideway.
“Not a bad job, sir,” said the pilot, as the anchor takes the bottom
and the ship straightens astern from her cable; “seemed ticklish a bit
for a minute when they ’eld onto the spring so long, sir; but ’ere we
are, bung up and bilge free, and with the looks of a good run, barrin’
the fog per’aps, for the morrer.”
The captain answers smilingly, for these two are old friends, and, what
is more, the hauling out has been a joint enterprise, though the senior
gets the credit, as he should. After a careful survey of the anchorage
and a word with the chief officer, the captain enters his cabin and
buckles down to the routine work, and there is always plenty of that
awaiting him. He glows pleasurably over the handy, seamanlike way they
have left the dock, for nautical critics are plenty and keen, and if he
had not taken up his berth in the river so cleverly, the ill news would
have grown apace, till, with unfair variations, it reached the ears of
their high nobilities—the directors.
Clear-headed, brainy, driving men, are these master-mariners, and
bearing patiently a responsibility that needs an iron will and a
courage faltering at nothing. There is no royal road to their station,
nor can willing hands make them what they must be. They cannot crawl
through cabin windows, nor, for that matter, come flying in a pier-head
jump through the gangway with one leg forward and the other aft. They
have to fight their way over the bows, and struggle out of the ruck and
smother in the fo’ks’le, by sturdy buffeting and hard knocks, by the
persistent edging of stout shoulders backed by strong hearts and steady
brains. If it is in them they will make their way in the end surely,
and may set the course and stump to windward as they please, while
others haul the weather-ear-rings, and drink their grog protestingly.
No; master-mariners are made, not born, and, unlike many of their
brothers in the government service, have to rise by energy, pluck,
merit—why enumerate them?—by a hundred qualities the world is better
for owning.
Old Pepys knew how this sea-kissing goes, and tells us of his favors in
this wise: “That,” he writes, “which puts me in a good humor both at
noon and night, is the fancy that I am this day (March 13, 1669) made
a captain of one of the King’s ships, Mr. Wren having sent me the Duke
of York’s commission to be captain of the Jerzy, ... which doth give
me the occasion of much mirth and may be of some use to me.” Think of
that, you venturesome die-hards, who linger all your lives at the lower
sheerpole, a post-captain by the scratch of a pen, and above all men
given to a lubberly scrivener and an Admiralty clerk at that.
All these elder merchant-masters are sailor-men, some so deep and
dyed in it that if you scratch them they ooze tar, and this briny
saturation has been invariably acquired under sail. After they have
had their ships and made many a voyage, deep water and home, round
both Capes, east and west, wherever winds may blow and freight, the
mother of wages, may linger, they shift into steam, but always in
a subordinate place. Should they stick by one employ they are sent
from ship to ship, working their way upward until they become chief
officers of the choicest vessels in the line. Here they must wait
for dead men’s shoes, or resignation, or forced retirement; but when
the chance comes they are given the command of the smaller and less
important steamers upon some subsidiary route. Then they enter a new
line of promotion, and weary are the years of waiting, and bitter
sometimes the disappointment, before they reach the high-water mark of
their service. And, with this hardly earned promotion, do not come, as
in other professions, ease, comfort, and proper recompense for duty
well done, but heavier responsibilities, harder work, and greater
self-sacrifice; what is worse, and this to the shame of the great
steamship corporations, these gallant men, even at their prime, receive
the most inadequate pecuniary recognition for the burden imposed, for
the mental and physical qualities exercised, for the experience brought
to bear; indeed, in no other trade or profession is equal ability so
badly paid.
The junior officers belong to all sorts and conditions of men. Most
of them have had to fight their way, though some have parents who
could well afford to pay a handsome premium for their sea education in
the training-ships stationed off the principal ports. Here they are
given a strict man-of-war tuition, though the routine of studies and
drills is, of course, modified to suit the results expected. After
their apprenticeship is served they go to sea, usually in sailing
ships; and when later they choose steam, they join as fourth or fifth
officers, and enter upon a career where their future is a hard but an
assured one. In the large employs they are encouraged to enter the
Naval Reserve, and are given time for their drills and opportunities
to qualify for the higher certificates of the merchant service; and
so much are these privileges esteemed that you often find on the
best steamers of the transatlantic liners one-half of the officers
holding masters’ certificates and junior commissions in the auxiliary
government service. Under the new regulations some of these officers
have, besides the guard-ship drill, taken a regular tour of duty as
lieutenants and sub-lieutenants on board sea-going men-of-war, and so
far this has proved a capital plan for both services. The nationality
of the officers is British, naturally, though English and Irish
predominate, the Scotch, somehow, taking more kindly to the engineering
part of the business, and the Welshmen staying at home.
There is a well-founded belief that the deck people are not sailor-men;
nor, indeed, are they in the majority of ships, that is, not sailors
in the true meaning of the word; but, on the other hand, neither are
they the mere swabbers of decks, scrubbers of paint-work, handlers
of the forward and after ends of trunks, or reefers of hat-boxes and
travelling-rugs their critics would have us believe. They belong to a
special class, not a very high one from the maritime point of view,
and are reasonably well fitted for the work expected. This you may
see at fire quarters, for example, a drill which, in these times,
is always held before the passengers come on board. As the alarm is
sounded by the rapid ringing of the ship’s bell, and the commands are
hoarsely shouted along the decks, you may notice, as the men rush to
their stations, the absence of the alertness, neatness, forehandedness
which characterize the man-of-war’s men; but they are sturdy and strong
and willing, and the echoes of the orders, “Fire forward! Main deck.
Quick’s your play,” have scarcely ceased, before a dozen hose are
coupled and run out, bucket and fire-extinguisher lines are formed,
axemen and smotherers are gathered, and hand and steam pumps started
with an energy promising a world of water. Grimy greasers and stokers
rush from below; stewards hop about as none but a steward can; and
butchers, bakers, and electric-light-makers rally in their appointed
places, eager for work, but in the motley of Falstaff’s draft. The
captain, watch in hand, receives the reports that all the departments
have assembled and that abundant streams have been in operation
(overboard, of course, but in the neighborhood of the fire) in blank
minutes—let us say three, as a fair average—from the time the alarm was
first given. Do you wonder if he smiles and says to his chief officer,
“Very creditable, sir; very well done. You may secure, sir?” Very well
done it is, and when you remember this is the first drill and many of
the hands are new, you may feel reasonably assured, should any ordinary
fire break out, that it is all Lombard Street to a Tahiti orange it
will be subdued most promptly.