When there are few passengers each can have a room to himself; but when there is anything like a “rush,” there must be more or less doubling up. Steamship agents will give you a room to yourself on payment of half an extra fare, and many persons avail themselves of the opportunity. Others who desire seclusion, but suffer from shallowness of purse, prefer to make friends with the purser or chief steward, and thereby secure what they wish for. No general rule can be laid down for this, and I leave each man to act for himself.
Once, when I crossed the Atlantic, I exulted in finding myself alone in a room well situated in the middle of the ship. While I was rejoicing about the matter, I was thrown into consternation by the steward, who entered and said:
“There is a young man in the room close by the screw, and he doesn’t like it, and is going to ask the captain to put him in with you.”
“William,” said I solemnly—for his name was William—“William, you know how delighted I should be to have him here. But, William, do you know that I have fits, nightmare, delirium tremens, small-pox and several other maladies, and that I am the most ill-natured man on board the ship? And do you know, William, that I have half a sovereign for you if that adolescent gentleman stays away?”
William smiled, said nothing, stuck his tongue in his cheek and departed. Ten minutes later he returned, bringing a broad grin on his face as a prefix to the information:
“The young feller will stay where he is, sir, and I hope you’ll remember the half-sov’ at the end of the voyage.”
What William said about me to the occupant of the room near the screw, I am unable to say; but I observed that the youth shunned my society, and consequently fear that he had formed an unfavorable opinion. But I gave the promised money to the steward “sans peur et sans reproche.”
The dangers of the Atlantic voyage are of little moment, and no more to be dreaded than those of a journey by rail from New York to San Francisco. I refer to the unavoidable dangers, such as gales, collisions with wrecks and similar accidents that human foresight cannot prevent. Accidents like the loss of the Atlantic and the Schiller, and similar disasters, are to be attributed to the bad management, either of the company, or of the ship’s officers, or of both, and do not come under the head of unavoidable calamities. With good management on all sides, and proper inspection of ships, a journey across the ocean is as safe as a rail journey of the same length, and in some respects more so. I have been assured by men familiar with the history of steam navigation that the casualties are not more numerous in proportion to the numbers travelling, than on American railways.
The reason why an accident on the water is more dreadful than on land is twofold. In the first place, the number of persons killed or wounded in a railway accident is always a small percentage of those on the train. Take Carr’s Rock, Angola, Richmond Switch, or any other terrible disaster by rail, and the number killed was a great deal smaller than the number of those who escaped unhurt. But a marine accident may destroy the life of every one on board the ship. This has been the case on several occasions. The steamers President, City of Glasgow, Pacific, City of Boston, Tempest, United Kingdom, Ismailia, and Trojan were lost at sea, and never heard from. Two steamers on the American, and one, I believe, on the English coast, were wrecked with all on board; and one steamer was wrecked near Moville, from which only a single man escaped. Most of these steamers were lost on their eastward trips, when their passenger lists were much smaller than if they had been going westward.
Another thing that makes an ocean accident terrible, is the difficulty of escape. If you are overturned in a railway car, you fall upon solid earth, but in an accident on the ocean, you have nothing but water to stand upon—a very poor support indeed. The boats of a steamship are not sufficient to hold her passengers and crew, as a general thing, and in case of an accident on a westward trip, when the steerage is crowded with emigrants, the loss of life may be enormous. On board the steamer which carried me over the Atlantic there were eight boats, with a capacity altogether of not more than four hundred persons, under the most favorable circumstances, supposing all of them launched and the weather fine. On her westward trips she frequently carries twelve hundred steerage passengers, and her crew and cabin passenger list would probably bring the complement up to very nearly fourteen hundred. In case the steamer sinks at sea, there would be a thousand persons who could not possibly find places in the boats! There is not a ship carrying emigrants that has boat room enough for half her passengers on a westward trip, and I doubt if any of them could even carry away a fourth of their complement. When your ship goes down at sea you may consider yourself fortunate if you do not go down with her.