The agents of the great lines running between this country and England, which are nearly all owned by English firms, declared that they were not afraid of the strike hurting them. If their engineers should be called out, they asserted that they could find plenty of men to fill their places.
This is all very well from the point of view of the agents seated in their comfortable offices, but very few of us would be willing to trust our lives on the high seas to inexperienced engineers. We do not care to ride on the cars in times of strikes when green hands are put on to keep them running till the trouble is over, and on the cars we can get out any moment we feel afraid. But on the ocean it is altogether a different matter. There is no stopping the car and getting out at the next block, and it would probably pay the steamship companies better to agree to the engineers' terms than to run their ships empty.
The Duchess of Marlborough (formerly Miss Consuelo Vanderbilt) is now the happy mother of a baby son who may one day be the Duke of Marlborough.
When it came time to christen the infant, the Prince of Wales sent word that he would act as godfather to the noble baby.
The child has just been christened, and a grand ceremony was made of the affair in the Chapel Royal, St. James' Palace, which, by the way, is the same church in which Queen Victoria was married.
According to the Church of England, three sponsors are necessary to the christening of a baby. If it is a boy there must be two godfathers and one godmother; if a girl, two godmothers and one godfather.
It was therefore necessary to have two godfathers for this infant, who, as eldest son of the Duke of Marlborough, is known by the title of Marquis of Blandford.
The Prince of Wales was one godfather and the other was Mr. W.K. Vanderbilt, the grandfather of the baby.
The christening was a very grand affair, and after it was over the Prince of Wales presented the infant with a golden cup engraved with his own name and coat of arms, and the baby's name, John Albert Edward William, and the family coat of arms.