| Show DANGER INDOORS ON ASHIr md battleship afo worth mach a thy seem on all first class passenger steamships and on all largo warships a great percentage of tho total cost is spent directly and indirectly on bulkheads or on what cheso bulkhead necessitate no pate enger would willingly make a voyage la a liner which was not known to have a cellular structure and no government would think of building a battleship or cruiser without bulkheads yet it I 1 a fact well known at least to all seafaring shipbuilders ship builders that these strong and perfect in are gate aad L as abe doors in them and not a wait so the doory as at present constructed and operated aro bad and dangerous they have been the direct and known causa in the loss of many lives and many good ships and are doubtless chargeable with many more chips on abe list of missing and unaccounted for it is astonishing to the expert to see the general public and oven seafaring nien ready to accept the prevailing superstition about the safety of bulkheads the best possible bulkheads without equally good doors operated on a safe system are about as good as a chain with a link missing the history of marine disaster has taught us this if it has taught us anything and yet we go on crossing the atlantic in liners of much vaunted safety and bragging about invulnerable battleships tle ships apparently with implicit confidence in this bulkhead fetich there should be as few doore as possible and some very able experts contend that there should be none on the other hand most captains and chief engineers say they must have the only way out of the difficulty is to get safe doors safely operated the number of watertight doors and hatches on a first class battleship ia over and there are nearly valves and gates connected with ventilating draining and flooding the hull and involving the safety of the ship it will therefore be seen that abe systematic control and operation of these devices is a matter of no mean importance it takes about men to look after these details alone in response to a collision alarm under the present conditions and it is a matter of very grave doubt on the part of those best informed as to whether the supreme efforts of cheso men can attend to doors hatches and valves quickly enough to save tho ship cassiers magazine |
