The Packets : 245 



meals a day were served, each of which strove to preserve the full con- 

 tent complexity and service that distinguished fashionable eating 

 habits ashore. In order that there might be fresh food throughout 

 the trip a section of the deck was given over to a barnyard fully 

 stocked with ducks, geese, chickens, pigs and even a cow for fresh 

 milk. 



An Irish actor named Tyrone Power, who traveled in a Black Ball 

 liner in the 30's, provides a detailed description of the living quarters, 

 the foods and the drinks so liberally provided, all of which came 

 for thirty guineas. Mr. Power seems to have been very nimble at get- 

 ting about; for he offers a description of the ladies' boudoir includ- 

 ing the observation that, "between the lights, this snuggery affords a 

 tolerable convenience for a little flirtation." 



The list of people who traveled on packets would include most 

 of the famous people of the time: Charles Dickens, P. T. Barnum 

 traveling with Tom Thumb the Great, Carl Schurz, and scores 

 of others. The artist and inventor S. F. B. Morse was traveling 

 with Captain W. W. Pell in the Sully when a dinner-table con- 

 versation turned to the matter of recent experiments in electromag- 

 netism. At the table Morse expressed his belief that an electrical 

 circuit could be used for the transmission of messages, and before the 

 trip was out he had invented the telegraph and filled a notebook 

 with sketches of possible instruments. 



The age of elegance and distinction in the packets for a long time 

 survived the competition of the early steam vessels. Steamers were 

 already operating between New York and Albany and between New 

 York and ports on the Sound when the first packets commenced 

 their regular services. The first packets were, in fact, occasionally 

 towed through harbor ice by steam, paddle-wheeled tugs. For forty 

 years after that packets kept their hold on transatlantic services. The 

 early steamers were irregular in operation. They sometimes went 

 astray and not infrequently were wrecked. It was only in 1848 when 

 the Cunard Line commenced operation from New York and adopted 

 the packet plan of operating on regular schedules that the packets 

 themselves finally lost their best customers. 



In the beginning the packets carried more cabin passengers than 

 they did immigrants in the steerage, but at the end the largest pack- 

 ets were devoted to the carrying of new settlers to American shores. 

 For example: in 1848, three ships of the Swallowtail Line, operating 

 from Liverpool, brought in a total of 5,773 steerage passengers. 



When the first packet, the Courier, sailed from Liverpool to New 



