OCR Text |
Show REALLY NAMED FOR STATE Mississippi River Steamers Originated Cognomen That Has Now Become Be-come Universal. On the Mississippi river dn olden days the passenger steamboats were very ornate affairs, vying with each other in garish glory. One owner hit on the idea of naming his steamboat's steam-boat's cabins instead of numbering them. So he named them in honor of the states of the union, each having above the door the gilt title of some state, the big central cabin being called call-ed the "Texas," after the largest state. Other boat owners took un the idea, ' an3 thus the word cabin was gradually grad-ually alternated by "state" room. For years the best cabin was still known as the Texas. Then that sobriquet died with the ebbing glory of the old river steamers. But the word "stateroom" became incorporated into our language, lan-guage, and in time even broke into the dictionary, as does many another catch phrase. Not one person in a thousand thou-sand who occupies a stateroom knows tJ.e term once meant "a room named for a state." |