FACTS ABOUT OCEAN STEAMSHIPS.
Mr. John Burns contributed to a recent number of Good Words a paper entitled "Something about the Cunard Line," which contains some interesting facts with regard to the equipment and working of ocean steamships. Taking the Etruria as a sample of the present vessels of the Cunard fleet, he states that her consumption of coal is 300 tons per day, or twelve tons per hour, or 466 lbs. per minute. For a single passage across the Atlantic (which takes seven days) she requires the following provisions—12,550 lbs. fresh beef, 760 lbs. corned beef, 5 320 lbs. mutton, 850 lbs. lamb, 350 lbs. veal, 350 lbs. pork, 2,000 lbs. fresh fish, 600 fowls, 300 chickens, 100 ducks, 50 geese, 80 turkeys, 200 brace grouse, 15 tons potatoes, 30 hampers vegetables, 220 quarts ice-cream, 1,000 quarts milk, and 11,500 eggs. The groceries for the double voyage include 650 lbs. tea, 1,200 lbs. coffee, 1,000 lbs. white sugar, 2,880 lbs. moist sugar, 750 lbs. pulverized sugar, 1,500 lbs. cheese, 2,000 lbs. butter, 3,500 lbs. ham, and 1,000 lbs. bacon. The quantities of wines, spirits, beer, &c., put on board for consumption on the double voyage comprise—1,100 bottles of champagne, 850 bottles of claret, 6,000 bottles of ale, 2,500 bottles of porter, 4,500 bottles of mineral water, 650 bottles of various spirits. Crockery is broken very extensively, being at the rate of 900 plates, 280 cups, 438 saucers, 1,213 tumblers, 200 wine glasses, 27 decanters, and 63 water bottles in a single voyage.
The Cunard ships, it is further stated, traverse yearly a distance equal to five times that between the earth and the moon.
In the course of a year the fleet consumes 4,656 sheep, 1,800 lambs, and 2,474 oxen, besides 831,603 eggs; and among other articles of consumption are 1½ tons of mustard, 1¾ tons of pepper, 7,216 bottles pickles, 8,000 tins sardines, 15 tons marmalade, 22 tons raisins, currants, and figs, and so on through a long list, finishing with 930 tons potatoes, 24,075 fowls, 4,230 ducks, 2,200 turkeys, 2,200 geese, 31,312 tablets Pears' soap, 3,484 lbs. Windsor soap, 10 tons yellow soap. The coal burned during the year amounts to 356,764 tons, which, if built as a wall four feet high and one foot thick, would reach from Land's End to John o' Groats.
ORPHAN BESS.
I am sure that most of our young friends know the meaning of the word "orphan"; and perhaps among the numerous readers of the Little Gleaner are some that are orphans themselves. But if some of the younger ones do not understand what is meant by the word, we must tell them that, when children have lost both parents by death, we call them orphans. Very sad indeed it is to lose both father and mother while young, for no earthly friend can really fill their place. It is of such a child that I am writing a few words, and I trust that our little readers will indeed feel thankful to God if He has spared them both parents, and granted them happy and comfortable homes.
It is more than ten years ago since I first saw her whom I now call Orphan Bess, and her baby sister. The first great shadow had then fallen upon her home, and I had to attend the funeral. This was in March, 1878. A very pale, fragile child our little maid was then, and her baby sister was more delicate still. She then sat on the floor, wondering at the tears of her mother, frightened at the strange faces and people that came to bear her father away, and trying to still the baby, which was wailing in the saddest tones. Oh, how unfit to be thrown on the world—the cold, rough world—without the strong arm of the father, and only the mother to shield! But a Greater Arm than the earthly father supported and maintained, and they were not left alone.