“Breakfast at eight o’clock.—Coffee, sugar, and fresh bread and butter, or biscuit and butter, or oatmeal porridge and molasses.
“Dinner at one o’clock.—Soup and beef, pork, or fish, according to the day of the week, with bread and potatoes, and, on Sunday, pudding will be added.
“Supper at six o’clock—Tea, sugar, biscuit, and butter. Oatmeal gruel will be supplied at eight P.M. when necessary.
“Luggage.—Ten cubic feet will be allowed for each adult steerage passenger, and twenty for each adult saloon passenger, free; for all over that quantity a charge of 1s. 6d. for each cubic foot will be made.
“All passengers are liable to be rejected who, upon examination, are found to be lunatic, idiot, deaf, dumb, blind, maimed, infirm, or above the age of sixty years; or any woman without a husband with a child or children; or any person unable to take care of himself (or herself) without becoming a public charge, or who, from any attending circumstances, are likely to become a public charge. Sick persons or widows with children cannot be taken, nor lame persons, unless full security be given to the United States’ Government, that the parties will not become chargeable to the State.”
[266] In 1866, an American company started a line of steamers between Boston and Liverpool. Two large and elegantly fitted wooden screws built in Boston, named the Erie and Ontario, were the precursors of this line, but were so unfortunate that, after making two or three passages across the Atlantic, the enterprise had to be abandoned.
[267] In the [Appendix No. 17, pp. 617-632], will be found a table of the several passages of the steamers of some of the lines employed in the Transatlantic trade during the years 1873 and 1874. I must, however, add (as I am anxious to be impartial and strictly accurate), that the steamers of three of these lines, the “Cunard,” “Inman,” and “National,” adopt the “Lane route,” that is, the route to the south of the Newfoundland banks, which increases the distance of each passage by about 90 miles, or allowing for the favourable Gulf stream by from 50 to 60 miles. I must also direct the attention of my readers to certain figures in these returns where I have placed an asterisk. For instance, one of the Cunard steamers (the Cuba) was on the passage of the 19th January, 1873, about seven days beyond her usual time, no doubt arising from some uncontrollable cause, which would increase the average passages outwards of the steamers of this line for that year by about 3 hours 10 minutes. Similar remarks apply to the steamers of the other lines, as the increased time there noted affects the annual average length of their passages, also, in a greater or less degree. The Canada (National line), 16 January, 1873, was, for instance, about seven days, while three other vessels of this line were three and a half, six and a half, and six days respectively behind their usual time. The America (Bremen line) was on one passage more than eleven days. A steamer of the White Star line, on one occasion, four and a half days; while the Guion line, on four occasions, four, five, six, and ten and a half days respectively; and the Inman line, four and a half, three and a half, four and a half, and ten days respectively longer than their usual time, occasioned, I am informed, by serving ships in distress and other laudable or unavoidable causes. Though some are faster than others, the speed and regularity with which all these lines of steamers traverse the Atlantic is very remarkable, and no better illustration could be given than this table of the perfection we have reached in ocean navigation. Indeed, the time of the arrival of these vessels can be depended on with almost as much certainty as a railway train.
[268] See [Appendix No. 18, p. 633].
[269] These steamers, which sail monthly from Glasgow for Alexandria, run in connection with the Peninsular and Oriental, and British India Steam Navigation Companies, by means of which system, passengers can be forwarded from Suez to Colombo, Madras, Calcutta, Rangoon, and Moulmein, and to all the principal towns in India and China. The Anchor Company has also a monthly service of its own vessels between Glasgow, Liverpool, and Bombay, viâ, the Suez Canal, taking goods and passengers for the ports on the West coast of India and the Persian Gulf in connection with the British India Company’s steamers.
[270] These steamers are each 400 feet in length, 40 feet breadth, and 33 feet depth from upper deck. They measure 4000 tons gross. They can accommodate in their cabins, which are fitted in first-class style, 250, and in the steerage 900 passengers.