Article II.—The High Contracting Parties reserve to themselves each to maintain in that sea 6 steamships of 50 metres in length at the time of flotation, of a tonnage of 800 tons at the maximum, and 4 light steam or sailing vessels of a tonnage which shall not exceed 200 tons each.
AN UP-TO-DATE MAIL STEAMER (1856).
Source.—Annual Register, 1856, vol. 98; Chronicle, p. 1.
A magnificent iron paddle-wheel steamship the Persia, built by Napier and Sons, of Glasgow, for the Cunard Company, has made her trial trip. This ship will be the largest steamship afloat in the world, until another shall have been built which shall surpass her. Such have been the advances made in our ideas of ships, and especially of steamships of late years, that the giant of to-day is the pigmy of to-morrow; and the chief use of these records is to show what was a magnificent ship at the commencement of 1856. The Persia is built of iron; her dimensions are: Length from figurehead to taffrail, 390 feet; length in the water, 360 feet; breadth of the hull, 45 feet; breadth over all, 71 feet; depth, 32 feet; burden, 3,600 tons; diameter of paddle-wheels, 40 feet.
By the Government rule of measure, her steam-power would be equal to 900 horses; according to Watt’s mode of reckoning it would be equal to 4,000 horses at least. The ship is of beautiful model, and combined so as to secure the greatest mechanical strength. Her keel-plates are of sheet-iron, 11/16 of an inch thick; the bottom plates 15/16; up to the water-line, 11/16. She is divided into seven water-tight compartments, besides which she has, in effect, a double bottom. She has two engines and eight boilers. She will afford separate and roomy accommodation for 260 passengers, and will carry a crew of 150 men. Besides splendid saloons and all other requisite apartments for her passengers, she has a bakery, butcher’s shambles, scullery, cow-house, carpenter’s shop, doctor’s shop, ice-houses, bath-rooms, and twenty water-closets. The builders’ calculations as to her speed were not disappointed, for on her voyage round from Glasgow to Liverpool she made an average of more than 16 knots, or 19 miles an hour.
RUBINSTEIN IN LONDON: FIRST APPEARANCE AT A PHILHARMONIC CONCERT (1857).
Source.—The Times, May 19, 1857.
Of Herr Rubinstein, his compositions, and his performances, we would rather not speak, but just now that there is so much charlatanism abroad, to the detriment of genuine art, silence is not permitted. We never listened before to such music—if music it may be called—at the Philharmonic Concerts, and fervently trust we may never again. So strange and chaotic a jumble as the Concerto in G defies analysis. Not a single subject fit to be designated “phrase” or “melody” can be traced throughout the whole dreary length of the composition; while, to atone for the absence of every musical attribute, we look in vain even for what abounds in the pianoforte writings of Liszt and others of the same school—viz., the materials for displaying mechanical facility to advantage.... As a player, Herr Rubinstein (who, when a mere boy, paid London a visit in 1843–4) may lay claim to the possession of extraordinary manual dexterity. His execution (more particularly when he has passages in octaves to perform) is prodigious, and the difficulties he surmounts with apparent ease are manifold and astonishing. But his mechanism is by no means invariably pure; nor is his manner of attacking the notes at all favourable to the production of legitimate tone. A pianist should treat his instrument rather as a friend than as an enemy, caress rather than bully it; but Herr Rubinstein seats himself at the piano with a seeming determination to punish it, and his endeavours to extort the power of an orchestra from that which is, after all, but an unpretending row of keys, hammers, and strings, result in an exaggeration of style entirely antagonistic to real musical expression.