Show A SHAMEFUL RECORD I The record of the Pacific Mall Steamship Steam-ship company names nineteen ships that the company has lost That Is altogether al-together a shameful showing Some were old hulks that ought not to have j been permitted to go to sea The old Southerner was one of these thc Sacramento was another The Golden Gol-den Gate was burned and probably no one was to blame but the truth Is thal I some of these ships were built so light i that they would have never been trusted trust-ed for a transAtlantic voyage But there has never been the rigid discipline and tho attention to details which are necessary To understand I this ono need but look a tho record of the Cunard line I Is older than tho I Pacific Mall but It has never lost but I two or three ships and never one life through storm wreck fog collision or explosion The reasons are that none but a veteran sailor can ever get to command com-mand a Cuimrdcr Accomplished shipmasters ship-masters have to servo for years as first second and third officers before they arc given command Then no Cunardcr is ever sent to sea except it 10 In perfect form and has n trained crew Then the rule eternal vigilance I is the price of safety Is never relaxed I That vigilance extends to every detail In a storm the commander Is always on tho bridge Inn fog there are double watches and a trusted man who stands j where he can communicate with the engineroom in n second There arc dally inspections ot every part of the ship and the crews are so drilled that In an emergency every map knows Instantly stantly his place and what to do As nearly as possible the business has been reduced to an exact science and every rule has to be obeyed I every moment mo-ment And the ships of that company have faced the storms the fogs the Icebergs I ice-bergs the dangers of collision the shipmarring rocks all the focs which tho wild Atlantic holds for close upon sixty years and no life has been ost It cannot all be luck The company began with wooden paddlewheel steamers without bulkheads to divide the ships Into sections and with old I fashioned sidelever engines I began I be-gan when steam navigation on tho I ocean was but an experiment almost a desperate experiment The picture of one of the first ships compared with the Laconla shows the marvelous changes that have been wrought in fifty years in steamship building but there has been no change in the rigid formula on which those I ships are sailed This last wreck seems to be the very worst that the Pacific Mall ever suffered suf-fered unless I be the Collma The Captain of that ship kept her under way with n heavy deck load after the ship had listed so that all saw that In a lit tlo more she would capsize and sink But the Rio was Inside tho bar in smooth water the Cliff house and the northend light in sight and still she was driven straight to destruction Some one was terribly to blame |