1842.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



215 



matter so much the worse, even if attainable, by adding fearfully to 

 the expense. 



The route is badly arranged.— 1\iexe are too many exact depen- 

 dencies and nice reciprocations involved in it, and it is also too 

 circuitous. The whole arrangements, indeed, upon this head are so 

 complicated as to be scarcely intelligible, and too visionary to be 

 practicable; and the utmost confusion appears to have arisen in con- 

 sequence. The movements of this vessel are dependent upon the 

 movements of that vessel, and the movements of this last upon those 

 of a third ; so that tlie detention or occurrence of accident to one of 

 the chain breaks the continuity, and throws all into confusion. In this 

 respect a transmissive line of steamers is similarly circumstanced to a 

 railway operating by stationary engines— an accident at any one of 

 the stations stops the whole line. The several stations appear to have 

 been injudiciously chosen; the grand rendezvous at Turk's Island, 

 where the Medina was lost, appears, in particular, to be extremely 

 ineligible. We tremble at the anticipations of a winter's storms 

 among the intricacies and dangers incident to the navigation of these 

 channels— studded as they are with rocks, banks, and islands. The 

 Company, it is true, has had many disasters, but has not yet had a 

 ninter. 



The vessels are all loo large.— Theit maintenance is consequently 

 too expensive for the trade to bear. The mere expense of engine 

 room wages per month is £200 for each vessel, and about as much 

 more for sailors, &c. ; nevertheless the vessels are inadequately 

 manned. The wages and cost of victualling the crews of the several 

 vessels cannot be much if at all less than£100,00U per annum. T.iking 

 the cost of each vessel at no more than £o0,00U, and as there are or 

 are to be 14 vessels, 00,000X14= £840,000, and adding £00,000 for 

 the purchase of the City of Glasgow and Acteon, as well as the sail- 

 ing vessels, the total capital of the Company embarked in vessels, 

 without leaving them a penny in hand to carry on their business with, 

 ■will be just one million sterling. The insurance upon this at 6 per 

 cent, will be £GO,000 per annum, and making the common allowance 

 of 15 per cent, for a sinking fund and wear and tear, the amount of 

 this item will be £150,000 per annum. The duration of a voyage- 

 that is, the time under weigh from England to St. Thomas, Nassau, 

 and round by Bermuda back again to England, is in round numbers 

 computed by the Company at lOOO hours, and the consumption per 

 hour in the greater number of the vessels is about 28 cwt. : 1000 X 

 28-f-20=; 1400 tons of coals consumed per voyage X 24 = 33,600 tons 

 consumed per annum upon the main line. Adding one half of this 

 for the consumption upon the branch lines and that of the Acteon and 

 City of Glasgow, the total consumption per annum will be 50,400 tons, 

 and much of this, taking into account the expense of freight, trans- 

 shipment, &c., will cost very little less than 2/. per ton. Adding to 

 the expense of coal that of engine-room stores, viz. oil, tallow, waste, 

 white and red lead, rope yarn, furnace bars, and the numberless 

 et cetera which every one acquainted with steam navigation as ex- 

 tended to foreign countries knows to be requisite for the performance 

 of a voyage, the amount of these united items— that is, of coal and 

 and of these various engine stores— cannot be less than £ 100,000 per 

 annum. The number of passengers, sometimes 5 or 6, rarely exceeds 

 20 or 30 : taking 20 as the average number, and assuming that they 

 all come the greatest distance, the passage money due to which is 

 62/. per head, and that the amount of the freight is always equal to 

 that of the passage money, the receipts and disbursements will stand 

 as under : — 



Annual Receipts. 



20 passengers at 62/., less victualling = 46/. £ 



20X2X46 = 3280X24= 78,720 



Cargo, bullion. &c 78,720 



Intermediate passengers, &c 10,000 



Mail money 240,000 



Annual Disbursements. 



Wages and victualling crew £100,000 



Insurance at 6 per cent 60,000 



Coal depots 1^,000 



Wear and tear, and sinking fund 150,000 



Coal and engine stores 100,000 



£420,000 



£407,440 



Thus it would appear that, at the lowest calculation of expense, 

 supposing that the speed is what the company anticipated, and that 

 the enterprise is better conducted than it ever will be conducted by 

 the present management, the excess of the expenditure over the 

 receipts is £13,000 per annum, and this without the charge of a 

 penny for management, clerks, offices, &c., or a fraction of dividend 

 to the proprietary. So much for the expediency of using leviathan 

 vessels. 



We hear that the directors, not satisfied with the havoc they have 

 already wrouglit, have it in contemplation to establish extensive work- 

 sliops— to become, in fact, engineers, as the Great Western Company- 

 attempted to become. We question the legality of this measure, the 

 funds of the company having been subscribed for a specific object ; 

 but, however that may be, we are quite assured of its inexpediency. 

 In the first place, what can a circle of steam tyros know of the ma- 

 na'gement of such concerns ? Has their past management been such 

 as to induce the desire, on the part of the proprietary, to embark in a 

 further speculation? In the second place, the contemplated measure 

 would be an act of injustice to engineers, many of whom are extensive 

 proprietors, and who have no right to see their own money squandered 

 in establishing an injurious though unavailing competition with them- 

 selves. We presume it was with an eye towards some such measure, 

 that the directors took such pains to have all their engines of a differ- 

 ent construction, so that a mould or a spare piece of machinery- 

 answerable for one should be altogether unsuitable for another. We 

 must, in this instance, give the directors credit for greater foresight 

 and a more skilful adaptation of means to an end than usually dis- 

 tinguish their procedures ; for we must certainly admit that a more 

 effectual method of rendering repairs difficult and expensive, of 

 rendering an infinite assortment of spare machinery indispensable— 

 in short, of rendering it necessary to keep a heavy engineering estab- 

 lishment perpetually occupied, could not have been devised by the 

 most perverse ingenuity. Nevertheless, though much unnecessary 

 expense and inconvenience are thus entailed upon the Company, we 

 do not think it therefore necessary to attempt the mitigation of those 

 evils by the creation of a still greater one ; and the directors must 

 pardon us for insinuating, that those persons who already possess the 

 moulds of the various assortments of machinery— who already have 

 workshops, tools, and, what is better than all, who have skill— ma.y 

 possibly be able to execute repairs upon more advantageous terms 

 than those who have all of these to purchase. Instead of seeking to 

 scpiander money in plaster and whitewash, the directors should think 

 of paying some small dividend to the shareholders. Workshops and 

 patterns, though they may cost a great deal, will sell for very little, 

 and there is no proposition more self-evident to us, than that these 

 very estimable cognoscenti would very soon do for a steam factory, as 

 effectually as they have done for a steam packet company. But so 

 far is it from the intention of the directors to declare a dividend, that 

 we heir it rumoured they intend, in violation of their guarantee, to 

 make a furth<-r call upon the shareholders. This call, we are very- 

 sure, will be resisted, but that it will be made we are as thoroughly 

 assured ; and the best thing the shareholders can do is to at once 

 convene a meeting among themselves, to take the necessary steps for 

 resuming their delegated authority. There are among their number 

 men of cool and clear heads, who well know what steam navigation 

 is, whose advice might do much to retrieve the present unhappy state 

 of affairs, and the shareholders should at once decide upon taking the 

 management into their own hands, until the requisite steps can be 

 taken for appointing another executive. Let a meeting, then, of the 

 shareholders be held ; let a resolution be carried, to the effect " that 



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