1 46 Safety °f Steam Boats. 



ber of which will be greatly augmented whenever an explosion shall 

 happen among the congregated hundreds, who now, tempted by a 

 mischievous nominal fare, crowd the decks of many of our steam 

 boats, so that they resemble transport ships, in a time of war, more 

 than vessels for safety and pleasure, in a period of peace. The 

 double remedy now pointed out is worthy of the more consideration 

 from the proprietors of steam boats, because all those now in use, 

 (with a great addition to their accommodations as well as safety,) can 

 be furnished with the double boilers and the protecting bulwarks, 

 which, to afford every possible security to their people, should be 

 adopted, even where the safety-barges are added. Then all the pro- 

 tection will be afforded, which the present state of our experience ad- 

 mits, and it will probably be sufficient, even should science and art do no 

 more for mankind on the subject of steam ; explosions will be dimin- 

 ished in number, because the boilers will be smaller, and more anx- 

 iously watched, and the victims, few in number, will be those who, 

 like soldiers and sailors in time of war, encounter a known danger, and 

 have a right to, and will obtain, a reward in some measure propor- 

 tionate to the risk incurred. The proprietors of steam boats must 

 answer it to their country and to God, if they neglect any practicable 

 means of defending their fellow creatures from the most awful and 

 afflictive casuality to which the confiding traveller is exposed. No 

 scheme will answer which does not either remove the passengers 

 from the danger, or remove the dreaded boiler from the crowd which 

 surrounds it, and from the possibility of deluging men, women and 

 children in boiling water — in boiling brine — in an atmosphere of over- 

 heated steam, or of destroying them by the fragments, or by the en- 

 tire boiler, projected among their crowded ranks. The boat which 

 is first ascertained to afford absolute security ivill be a fortune to its, 

 proprietors* 



ON THE SAFETY OF STEAM BOATS. 



^ Theodore D wight, Esq. — Sir— Your paper, and others, having 

 given expression to the public solicitude on occasion of the late ac- 

 cident on board the Marshall, in reference to the future safety of 

 passengers, it may be presumed that any suggestions to that end will 

 be acceptable to a community with whom the inquiry may well arise, 

 whether there can be any sure remedy for this danger? 



To mention only some of its sources will enable all to answer the 



question for themselves. 



