One of the largest sailing-ships afloat is the French five-master, La France, launched in 1890 on the Clyde, and owned by Messrs A. D. Bordes et Fils, who possess a large fleet of sailing-vessels. In 1891 she came from Iquique to Dunkirk in one hundred and five days with 6000 tons of nitrate; yet she was stopped on the Tyne when proceeding to sea with 5500 tons of coal, and compelled to take out 500 tons on the ground that she was overladen. There is not a single five-masted sailing-ship under the British flag. The United States has two five-masters, the Louis of 830 tons, and the Gov. Ames of 1778 tons, both fore-and-aft schooners, a rig peculiar to the American coast. Ships having five masts can be counted on the fingers of one hand; but, strange to say, the steamship Coptic, of the Shaw, Savill, & Albion Co., on her way to New Zealand, in December 1890, passed the Gov. Ames in fourteen degrees south, thirty-four degrees west, bound for California; and two days later, in six degrees south, thirty-one degrees west, the French five-master, La France, bound south. Passengers and crew of the Coptic might travel over many a weary league of sea, and never again be afforded two such excellent object lessons in the growth of sailing-ships in quick succession.
Some large sailing-ships experience a decided difficulty in obtaining freights that will repay expenses, even ignoring a margin for profit, and we are reluctantly compelled to confess that the days of sailing-ships are almost numbered. The cry for huge sailers is an evidence that steam is determining the dimensions of the most modern cargo-carriers under sail.
La France.
CHAPTER IX.
POST-OFFICE—TELEGRAPH—TELEPHONE—PHONOGRAPH.
Rowland Hill and Penny Postage—A Visit to the Post-office—The Post-office on Wheels—Early Telegraphs—Wheatstone and Morse—The State and the Telegraphs—Atlantic Cables—Telephones—Edison and the Phonograph.