Show by JOHN DICKINSON SHERMAN UE las of the clipper ships balled into new lork harbor with her last cargo abe other day she was the benjamin jackard with lumber from pu get sound via the panama canal which was not even begun when she was built it was a solemn moment for capt dnn martin and his crew in a spirit that befitted the occasion they raised a clum tey an old familiar chantey that IB as much out of date as the packard herself whisky for my johnny 1 it was the requiem for another american institution gone the clipper ship the craft that ever delighted a sailors ee the packard tor a clipper ship Is a youngster she s only forty three years old because ehe was built after the heyday of the clipper was past and shea sound because she was built at bath maine 0 oak and yellow pine with copper fastenings she was put together to stay for there s rough weather round the where she was bound later the packard was engaged in trade liverpool and mel bourne still later she was used in abe alaska salmon arnde once as fast as any clipper ship afloat the packard Is now too slow and too old fashioned and too uneconomical to be useful in a marine world of oil burning steel steamers what will be her fate the junk heap unless some public spirited citizen rescues her and preserves her ns a relic time Is remorselessly sweeping all the sailing ships from the merchant marines of the civilized world many a man still hale and hearty has seen the beginning and the end of steams arh ing out cam as another old timer now being broken up in san francisco bay 1 full rigged ship santa clara built at bath about ten years before the packard her last service was between the alaska fisheries and san francisco the last of the old time chalers whalers wh alers abe charles W morgan of new bedford was laid away the other day in her home port after eighty tour years of voyaging on the seven seas how fascinating Is the evolution of the Levla of today from the dugout of the prehistoric savage 1 possibly that evolution if we could trace it Is a fair record of mans growth in mental power and mastery of the secrets of nature who fashioned the first keel who attached the first rod der who first contrived to sail to windward important things these on such hangs much of the history of the world it was arnke and his sea captains who saved england from the spanish armada and made her mistress of the seas because their handy little ships could sail rings around the unwieldy floating citadels of the when man first ventured on the open he kept within sight of land in due time came the compass and alie chart and the to find the ships latitude and longitude the first recorded mention of a ves eel tells of a in eget warship therefore there were other warships and also merchant ships the phoenicians Phoenicia ns were the greatest seafaring people of antiquity from to 30 the roman tri reme was the most powerful warship in 00 it was feet in length and 25 feet in breadth and carried men columbus by discovering america so stimulated exploration by sea that the whole globe quickly became an old story vasco da oama doubled the cape of good and reached india magellan rounded the and died in the philippines and his men finished the circumnavigation of the earth the western hemisphere was conquered and colonized from europe we americans have always been at homo on the sea no smarter sailor than the american ever went down to the sea in ships the beginning of the revolution saw britain mistress of the seas it was by reason of her marine that she had attained her greatness and on her marine that she depended for safety and prosperity and ft orld dominance here Is her declaration la our maritime superiority Is in fact a part of the law of nations it Is the right of conquerors since men as soc together in civilization to give laws to the conquered we had no navy yet it was our cruisers and privateers which largely won the revolution next we won an honorable peace in the naval war with france we freed ourselves from the exactions of the barbary pirates in the war of 1812 fought to main tain our inalienable rights on the sea won in the revolution our famous trig ate constitution humbled britaina Brit ains pride and set the maritime world aghast by her superiority over the best fighting ehlis afloat and this war wis also largely won on the sea between the revolution and the war of 1812 our merchant ehlis were anathema to both england and france and the british preyed upon them through the of sailors and the seizure of cargoes thereupon we developed a flourishing trade with the orient it was in the that boston salem and new york made the beginning of a vastly profitable three cornered trade trinkets and trade goods to alaska furs to china silk and tea back home in philadelphia girard in 1703 began the build ing of ills famous fleet of eighteen ships for the orient trade and made a fortune of millions these fleets in the orient trade were the forerunners of the clipper ships donald mckay Is to have a belated memorial at boston erected by public subscription chos he and why because donald mckay was one of the great shipbuilders ship builders of the world and because he built some of the finest and fastest fas clipper ships that ever falleti the as mckay was a nova scotia farmer s boy whose grandfather in tartan and kilts had marched up against the yankees to a bunker allt hicl tory in east boston beginning witt 1845 he built fifty vessels in 1853 tu launched ten fessele with nn aggregate of 24 GOO tons valued at 50 a ton among the famous clipper chips he designed and built were the cloud sovereign of the seis great republic and the flying elsh the great for example waa launched in the presence of a crowd of GO people she was 32 fee in length 53 in breadth 37 in depth and her tonnage was the flying cloud sailed arora new york to san francisco round the horn in eighty nine days eighteen hours the Or egons famous run in the spanish american war was from san francisco to santiago cuba in seventy five days figure it all out and there Is not much difference in speed and the comet reduced the flying cloud s record to eighty three days I 1 some of the clipper ship records are marvelous even in this day of steam in 1854 the lightning ran from boston to liverpool 2827 miles in thirteen days she ran in sixty four days from melbourne to liverpool miles in the nightingale ran from melbourne to new york miles in seventy three days and these clipper ships were the loveliest craft to the eye that ever sailed the ses the first one turned out was the built in baltimore in 1843 for the china trade she was longer than the merchant ships of her day and with less beam she had a sharp bow and all her hull unea were graceful she was small only tons but she was ample demon of the revolution that bad been brought about when such ships as the flying cloud began to show what the american clipper ship could do the maritime world gasped in astonishment carry was the motto of the yankee captain nothing short of a gale could make him reduce sail his ship was able and the harder it blew the shorter the boyage and he carried on by night as well as by day while ordinary shipping hove to in heavy i er and regularly reduced sail during the night watches J but while the american clipper was making history and the british nere quick in imitation steam had be gun to its power in came the elde wheeler ten years la ter came the iron hull and then ini in I quick succession came tho screw pro j peller the compound engine the steel hull the twin screw the turbine toj to j day the model craft Is oil burning anda electrically driven what next |