CAPTAIN LINDALL.
The Labrador, 4,737 tons, launched from the famous shipyard of Harland & Wolff, Belfast, in 1891, has also been a successful and popular ship. She combines in her construction a number of the latest improvements, and has attained a high rate of speed, with large cargo capacity and a moderate consumption of fuel. Until the arrival of the Canada, in October, 1896, the Labrador held the record for the fastest voyage from Moville to Rimouski—6 days, 8 hours. In August, 1895, she made the voyage from land to land in 4 days, 16 hours. In May, 1894, she averaged 365 knots a day, equal to fifteen knots an hour, her best day’s run being 375 knots, which was regarded as great work considering the small amount of fuel consumed. In December of that year she made the run from Moville to Halifax in 6 days, 12 hours.
Up to this point, however, the business ability and enterprise of the Dominion Company had not been rewarded with financial success. For years they had to contend with the general depression of trade, the keen competition of other lines, and ruinous rates of freight. In the autumn of 1894 the managers resigned, and the entire fleet of vessels was sold to Messrs. Richards, Mills & Co., of Liverpool, at a great sacrifice. The Montreal agency remains as heretofore with Messrs. D. Torrance & Co., and under the new management the line seems to have entered upon a career of prosperity.
The casualties on the St. Lawrence route to steamers of this line have been numerous, but with a comparatively small loss of life. The foundering of the Vicksburg, from collision with ice, in 1875, was the most disastrous, involving the loss of forty-seven lives of passengers and crew—including the captain—and a large number of cattle. The Ottawa went ashore about fifty miles below Quebec in 1889 and became a total wreck. The Idaho was wrecked on Anticosti in 1890; the Montreal, on the island of Belle Isle in 1889. The Texas went ashore on Cape Race in a fog and became a total wreck. In September, 1895, the Mariposa, a beautiful twin-screw chartered steamer of 5,000 tons, was stranded at Point Amour in the Straits of Belle Isle and became a total wreck, but the passengers and crew were all saved.
DOMINION LINE SS. “CANADA.”
It very soon became apparent that the new management of the Dominion Line was bent on a new departure. They lost no time in discarding the smaller boats and replacing them with large and powerful freight steamers having also limited accommodation for passengers. Of this type were the Angloman[34] and the Scotsman. The latter is a fine twin-screw ship of colossal strength, 6,040 tons register, with a carrying capacity of from 9,000 to 10,000 tons of cargo, and an average speed at sea of twelve to thirteen knots. In September, 1895, in addition to a large general cargo, the Scotsman left Montreal with the largest shipment of live stock that ever left this port, consisting of 1,050 head of cattle, 2,000 sheep, and 47 horses, all of which were landed safely in Liverpool. But the latest addition to the fleet is in advance of the Scotsman. The Canada, which sailed on her first voyage from Liverpool on October 1st, 1896, is a type of ocean steamer new to the St. Lawrence, and is designed to meet present requirements by combining in one vessel the essential features of a first-class passenger ship with so large a freight-carrying capacity as to make her practically independent of subsidies. The Canada is a twin-screw steamer 515 feet long, 58 feet beam, and 35 feet 6 inches moulded depth. Her gross tonnage is about 9,000 tons. Her triple expansion engines are calculated to develop 7,000 horse-power with a steam boiler pressure of 175 pounds. Her staterooms are perhaps the finest feature of the ship—equal to any on the ocean ferry. Her maiden voyage was a stormy one, but it easily surpassed all previous records from Liverpool to Quebec. On her second trip she left Liverpool at 5 p. m. on October 29th, and reached Rimouski on November 4th, at 11.40 p. m., thus making the voyage in 6 days, 11 hours and 40 minutes, and to Quebec in 6 days, 23 hours, 30 minutes. Her average speed on this voyage was about 16 knots an hour, and her best day’s run, 416 knots, equal to 17⅓ knots an hour.
