94 INTERIOR DECORATION OF VESSELS. 



panels and fancy mouldings. The best example of stateroom corridor I have ever 

 seen was on the Cunard line steamer Aquitania. Here panels were eliminated en- 

 tirely. The walls were built of tongued and grooved planks finished smooth and 

 covered with a light canvas stretched on and painted, with pilasters at doors and 

 corners only. They looked very neat and were doubtless much cheaper to build 

 and keep in good order than panelled walls. Stateroom division bulkheads, if also 

 built this way, would make all four walls alike in the room. Panels never work in 

 well around berths and other numerous stateroom fittings. There are some of the 

 suites on the Aquitania where these walls are papered like the rooms of a house 

 and they look very nice, with a mezzo-tint print or other good picture hung here 

 and there. When soiled this can easily be renewed, besides making the room home- 

 like and a good setting for the furniture. 



The dead white enameled walls of the average stateroom are too glaring. The 

 walls back of the corridor and alcove bulkheads usually show the back of the panels 

 of the opposite side, and with the division walls of the usual tongued and grooved 

 stufif make all four walls different and are very unsightly. The flush walls men- 

 tioned above would prevent this. 



These remarks are merely suggestions. It is not necessary to have English or 

 Flemish Renaissance because it is a smoking room or trelliage because it is an out- 

 side room, etc. There are many varieties to select from, or a good decorator can 

 work up a design that may be original and interesting, yet at the same time mean 

 something. 



We do not need to have carving or ornaments to make a thing attractive. To 

 begin with, carving is a dirt collector, and unless one can afford to have it well exe- 

 cuted it had better not be attempted. The H. P. Whitney yacht — at the time of 

 writing this paper building at Cramp's — it would be well to mention, is entirely de- 

 void of carving or ornament, everything depending on the simple lines of the panel 

 work which, together with the beauty of the woods used, the hardware, lighting fix- 

 tures and furnishings of every kind to correspond, is going to be very much of a 

 success for a vessel of her type. I have often wondered why in yacht work, when 

 smallness of space usually requires joiner work to be as flat as possible, marquetry 

 is not used more. Here we usually have hardwood walls, mahogany or walnut, 

 and a beautiful effect can be had with large, flat panels with a narrow border of 

 satinwood, maple or some other silky grained wood inlaid an inch or so from the 

 edge, set off with the straight lines of Sheraton or Hipplewhite furniture which is 

 usually inlaid. The ceilings of such a room could be a light tint harmonizing with 

 the inlay, contrasting the dark wood and lightening it up. 



As the discussion of the many different styles of decoration is so very exten- 

 sive that it could not be taken up within the limits of this paper, I have only at- 

 tempted here a few remarks to try to increase interest in that direction. It has 

 always been the writer's opinion that the ship look of a passenger vessel should 

 stop upon the entrance to her interior, and be intended to appeal to people used to 

 living on shore. 



