124 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
installed. There was an open-ended bridge and a forecastle, where the 
officers and men were accommodated. Gradually, in later vessels the 
poop joined the bridge, and then the bridge joined the forecastle, and the 
vessels became awning-deckers or spar-deckers. A medium-sized passenger 
steamer on which I made a short trip when she was delivered in the autumn 
of 1874 was a spar-decker and her passenger accommodation was arranged 
as above. The captain’s cabin was in the companion-house aft, the officers 
and engineers in a deckhouse just abaft the engine-room skylight, and the 
ship’s offices were in a bridge only 44 ft. long; she was otherwise a flush- 
decker ; the crew were below the spar-deck forward. Then in later ships 
forecastles again appeared, and midship houses developed into bridge- 
houses; then poops were fitted, to go once more through the same 
programme. Thus, as size increased, deck after deck has been added, 
until in the largest vessels the old names of bridge, upper, main, lower 
and orlop no longer suffice, nor are they truly descriptive, and the decks 
are lettered A, B, C, D, etc. 
In 1876, as an apprentice joiner I made the old-fashioned settees 
for the dining-saloons, with their swing backs, which gave way to revolving 
chairs bolted to the deck, which again have been displaced by comfortable 
armchairs, either entirely free, so that they can be pulled im and out to 
suit the build of the passenger, or at most loosely attached by a chain. 
The simple saloon framing designed by the foreman joiner has given 
place to the beautifully designed and fitted public rooms, in the design of 
which the best architects and artists have been willing to show their skill. 
I think one of the earliest ships so fitted was the P. & O. Clyde, whose 
saloons were designed in 1880 by Mr. (now Sir) John Burnet, R.A. The 
old wooden ‘ two in a height’ bunks in staterooms, with galvanised-iron 
cross-strips to support the hair mattress, have given way to brass bedsteads 
with luxurious spring mattresses of ample length and width as ‘ at home,’ 
instead of the regulation 2 ft. by 6 ft. The old candle-lamps, swinging in 
gimbles at the mirror or fixed in the bulkheads, one for each two cabins, 
which at best made darkness visible, have been replaced by powerful 
electric lights, one or more to each stateroom, with probably a reading- 
lamp at the head of each bed. Artificial ventilation, either with fans 
in each stateroom or with trunk ventilation fed by powerful main fans 
supplying air warmed or cooled as desired, is now fitted. Hot and cold 
water laid on to each stateroom has taken the place of the old goglets and 
receivers. 
—— 
least in a height and in blocks of dozens, having in many cases to crawl — 
The third-class, or emigrants, of the ‘eighties were packed two at — 
| 
in over the end of their bunks. Now they have two, three, or four berthed — 
staterooms with many comforts which were absent from the first-class 
of an earlier date. The restriction put upon the entry of emigrants to the — 
States has led our wide-awake shipowners to new developments—the one- — 
class ship, and latterly to the tourist class, where ‘ gentlefoll’ for little 
more than third-class fare may cross the Atlantic in much greater comfort 
and even luxury, and at speeds which in the ’eighties were not available 
to first-class passengers. 
The navigating bridge of a modern high-class steamer is an inspiring 
sight, with Gyro compass probably fitted with an automatic quartermaster, _ 
‘ tell-tales ’ from the engine-room giving the revolutions of the engine and — 
Patton. 
