222 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



where he was running the Royal Victoria Hotel. 

 Grover Cleveland went down to Nassau by our 

 next boat to take charge of his brother's affairs. 



There was never a thought of omitting any 

 precaution prescribed by law or sanctioned by 

 custom, and no economy was ever knowingly 

 practiced at the peril of human life, yet it was 

 long before I ceased to read editorials suggesting 

 the occasional hanging of a steamship president, 

 "to encourage the others," or some modification 

 of Punch's advice to tie a railroad director to the 

 cowcatcher of every locomotive. Especially was 

 it rubbed into me that the Bienville had recently 

 been burned in the same waters and that every 

 passenger had escaped. In such comments it was 

 not mentioned that the Bienville was abandoned 

 in a calm, the passengers embarked at leisure 

 in boats which were afterwards provisioned and 

 supplied with everything that could be thought of 

 in the long hours of opportunity afforded, and 

 that conditions made the whole affair a picnic. 



Yet there was one precaution that was not 

 taken, that no real steamship man of those days 



