Having arrived yesterday from Bristol, which place she left on the 8th inst., at noon, will sail from New York for Bristol on Monday, May 7th, at 2 o’clock P.M.
She takes no Steerage Passengers. Rates in the Cabin, including Wines and Provisions of every kind, 30 guineas; a whole State-room for one person, 50 guineas. Steward’s fee for each passenger, £1 10s. sterling. Children under 13 years of age, half price. No charge for Letters or Papers. The Captain and Owners will not be liable for any Package, unless a Bill of Lading has been given for it. One to two hundred tons can be taken at the lowest current rates.
Passage or freight can be engaged, a plan of cabin may be seen, and further particulars learned, by applying to
Richard Irvin,
98 Front St.
Other steamships made experimental voyages across the Atlantic after this, and several attempts were made to establish regular lines, that is, a service with stated times of sailing from one year’s end to another; but none of these succeeded until 1840, when the British & North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company was organized. The chief promoter of this concern was Mr. Samuel Cunard, of Halifax, and the name of the corporation was speedily forgotten in the popular adoption of his name to designate the line. Mr. Cunard and his associates had been keen observers of the various experiments in steam navigation, and naturally they profited by others’ failures. By no means the least important feature of their enterprise, by which it differed from previous ventures, and by which it secured a fighting chance for prosperity, was an arrangement with the British Government for carrying the mails. The first mail contract covered a period of seven years at £60,000 annually. This service was monthly in the beginning, afterward fortnightly, and the points touched were Liverpool, Halifax, and Boston. Eventually, with increased subventions from the Government, a weekly service was established between Liverpool and New York, as well as a semi-monthly service between Liverpool and Boston. The first fleet of the Cunard line consisted of four vessels—the Britannia, Acadia, Caledonia, and Columbia. Another steamship, the Unicorn, made what was probably a voyage of announcement for the company. The Unicorn was the first steam-vessel from Europe to enter Boston Harbor, where she arrived on June 2, 1840. Although Boston made as much fuss over this event as New York had over the arrival of the Sirius and Great Western two years before, regular communication with Europe was not established until the arrival of the Britannia, the real pioneer of the Cunard line. She left Liverpool on Friday, July 4, 1840, and made the voyage to Boston, including the détour to Halifax and delay there of twelve hours, in fourteen days and eight hours. That Mr. Cunard was correct in believing that transportation by steam would stimulate travel between the continents is clear enough to us now; but he and his associates must have felt justified in the undertaking by the fact that the Britannia carried ninety cabin passengers on her first trip.
Although the passengers had “the run” of the entire ship, their accommodations were little, if any, better than those provided in the clippers. The saloon and state-rooms were all in the extreme after-part of the vessel, and there were no such things as comfortable smoking-rooms on deck, libraries, sitting-rooms, electric lights and annunciators, automatic windows to port-holes; and there were no baths to be obtained except through the kind offices of the boatswain or his mate, who vigorously applied the hose on such passengers as came dressed for the occasion when the decks were being washed in the early morning. “State-room” was much more of a misnomer then than it is now. On the most unpretentious modern steamship there is room enough in the chambers to put a small trunk, and even other articles of convenience to the traveller; and one may dress, if he takes reasonable care, without knocking his knuckles and elbows against the wall or the edges of his berth. Nowadays, too, the state-room is usually large enough to accommodate three or four persons, while some are arranged to hold more, if the ship is crowded. The pioneer steamship had chambers so narrow that there was just room enough for a stool to stand between the edge of the two-feet-wide berth and the wall—mere closets. There were two berths in each room, one above the other. By paying somewhat less than double fare a passenger given to luxury might have a room to himself, according to the advertisement of the Great Western. Within such narrow quarters, however, everything possible was done for the passenger’s comfort. A gentleman, now in business in New York, who crossed in the earliest days of the Cunard line, and who has since sailed on the modern racers, says that the difference is by no means as great as might be expected. He puts it this way:
“The table was as good then as it is now, and the officers and stewards were just as attentive. There is more costly ornamentation now; but that aside, the two great improvements over the liners of forty-five years ago are in speed and space. There is more room now to turn around in, and the service is somewhat better.”