"You see," continued the capitalist, "the ship came in answer to a circular sent out by our government to various shipbuilders asking bids from swift and reliable boats to carry our mails to England. Cunard immediately saw the commercial advantages of such an opportunity, and not having money enough to back the venture himself the Halifax man went to Scotland where he met Robert Napier, a person who like himself had had wide experience in shipping affairs. Both men were enthusiastic over the project; before long the money necessary for the undertaking was raised, and the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, with a line of four ships, was awarded the United States Government 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 Scotch ancestry, and the Columbia out of regard to America. And in passing it is rather interesting to recall that in homage to these pioneer ships it has become a tradition of the Cunard Line to use names that terminate in the letter a for all the ships that have followed them. For, you must remember, it was this modest group of steam packets that were the ancestors 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 such mammoth floating hotels were possible he would probably not have believed you. He had task enough on his hands to carry the mails; transport the few venturesome souls that dared to cross the sea; and compete with the many rival steamship lines that sprang up on both sides of the ocean as soon as some one had demonstrated that trans-Atlantic travel was practical. For after Cunard had blazed the path there were plenty of less daring persons ready to steal from him the fruits of his vision and courage. From 1847 to 1857 the Ocean Steamship Company carried mails between New York and Bremen, and there was a very popular line 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 nearly approached our present-day liners as to size. Then there was the Collins Line that openly competed with the Cunard Line; and to further increase trans-Atlantic travel, in 1855 Cornelius Vanderbilt, ever at the fore in novel projects, began operating lines of steamships not only to England and 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 steady advance in ocean shipbuilding. Although iron ships had gradually replaced wooden ones the side-wheeler was still in vogue, no better method of locomotion having been discovered. When the change from this primitive device to the screw propeller came it was a veritable leap in naval architecture. Now revolutions in any direction seldom receive a welcome and just as the conservatives had at first hooted down the idea of iron ships, asserting they would never float, so they now decried the use of the screw propeller. Indeed there was no denying that this innovation presented to shipbuilders a multitude of new and balking problems. While the clipper ships had greatly improved the designs of vessels the stern was still their weakest point and now, in addition to this already existing difficulty, came the new conundrums presented by the pitch, or full turn of the thread, in the screw propeller; also the churning of the current produced by the rapidly whirling wheel, which was found to retard the speed of the ship very materially. Valiantly engineers wrestled with one after another of these enigmas until they conquered them and put shipbuilding on the upward path where it has been ever since. In time steel ships replaced the cruder vessels of iron; finer types of engines were worked out; the wireless and the many electrical devices which herald approaching foes and announce the presence of icebergs have been invented; until now the ocean liner is practically safe from all perils except fogs, icebergs and submarines."
He stopped a moment with eyes fixed on the glowing logs that crackled on the hearth.
"Meanwhile," he went on, "comfort aboard ship has progressed to luxury. Better systems of ventilation, more roomy sleeping quarters, more windows and improved lighting facilities have been installed. The general arrangement of the ship has also been vastly improved since the days when the high bulwark and long deckhouse were in use. Now iron railings allow the sea to wash back and forth in time of storm, and in consequence there is less danger of vessels being swamped by the waves. Then there are watertight doors and bulkheads, double bottoms to the hulls, and along with these more practical advances have come others of a more healthful and artistic trend. The furniture is better; the decoration of the cabins and saloons prettier and more harmonious; there has been more hygienic sanitation. When the Oceanic of the White Star Line was built in 1870 she had a second deck, and this novel feature was adopted broadcast and eventually ushered in the many-deck liners now in use. The Servia, built in 1881, was the first steel ship and the advantage of its greater elasticity was instantly seen. Builders were wise enough to grasp the fact that with the increasing length of vessels steel ships would be able to stand a greater strain. Little by little the gain went on in every direction. Nevertheless, in spite of the intelligence of the shipbuilders, it was long before trans-Atlantic navigators had the courage to trust themselves entirely to their engines and discard masts; although they shifted to steel ones instead of those of 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 it greater speed and there was a revival of the old racing spirit. Between the various shipping lines of all nations the contest for size and swiftness has raged ever since. Before the Great War, Germany had a very extensive collection of large and rapid liners, many of them built on the Clyde, that fought to surpass the Cunard ships. The White Star Line also took a hand in the game and built others. In the contest, alas, America has been far behind until gradually she has let other countries slip in and usurp the major proportion of ocean commerce. It is a pitiful thing that we should not have applied our skill and wealth of material to building fine American steamship lines of our own instead of letting so many of our tourists turn their patronage to ships of foreign nations. Perhaps if the public were not so eager for novelty, and so constantly in search for the newest, the largest and the fastest boats, we should be content to make our crossings in the older and less gaudy ships, which after all are quite as seaworthy. But we Americans must always have the superlative, and therefore many a steamer has had to be scrapped simply because it had no palm gardens, no swimming pools, no shore luxuries. We have not, however, wholly neglected naval construction for we have many fine steamships, a praiseworthy lot of battleships and cruisers and some very fine submarines. I hope and believe that the time will come when our merchant marine will once again stand at the front as it did in the days of the clipper ships. Our commerce reaches out to every corner of the earth and why should we rely on other countries to transport our goods?"
"I suppose there are no pirates now, are there, Mr. Ackerman?" asked Dick, raising his eyes expectantly to the capitalist's face.