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struction of fine drawing-rooms or day staterooms furnished as parlors. These rooms are leased by the year, each tenant having his own key, so that on his daily trips he has a room on the boat for the exclusive use of himself and family. Each room is handsomely decorated and furnished in good taste. The boat is interesting not only as an example of a fine seagoing day boat fitted with every possible luxury and comfort for the use of her passengers, but also as a departure from the conventional paddleboat. The motive power consists of twin screws, each driven by a vertical triple expansion engine. The united power is about 3000 horse-power, and the boat has a regular speed of 181⁄2 knots. The twin screws and separate engines are also found useful as an aid to the rudder in docking or otherwise handling the boat.

The new steamer Puritan, of the Fall River line, is the largest and in every respect the finest boat of its class ever built. It marks a great advance in the art of boat-building, and its interior fittings and decoration indicate a wholly new departure in this line of work. While our boat-builders have had scant respect for the traditions of their trade, and while our boats have shown great originality in construction, there has been too much conservatism in the matter of interior decoration. The first builders were more carpenters than decorators, and later builders have clung to the scroll-saw and bracket style too long. In the Puritan, as in the Bergen, an effort has been made to produce a boat that shall be artistic as well as seaworthy, and the result is very satisfactory. The boat itself is of grand proportions, and while it follows the general plan of the four

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FORWARD CABIN OF THE PURITAN."

deck boats, it varies sufficiently to give it a character of its own. The most noticeable feature is the absence of the conventional paddle-boxes, the wheels being inclosed in the house. Another feature is the covering of the working beam by a dome above the hurricane deck. All the decks, except the first, give a free promenade by means of galleries outside or over the wheels the entire length of the boat, excepting the space occupied by the boats on the hurricane deck.

The hull was built at Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1888, and the boat was fitted with engines and the decks and houses built and decorated in New York in the winter of 1888-89. The hull has a double bottom extending on the side

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up to the waterline. In this space are fifty-two compartments, while the inner hull is divided into seven compartments by water-tight bulkheads. To give an idea of the grand proportions of this great boat it may be noted that the hull is 404 feet long on the water-line and 420 feet long over all, 52 feet wide, 21 feet 6 inches deep, and draws 13 feet of water when loaded. The decks are much wider, being at the center 91 feet wide and inclosing the wheels. The four decks are unusually high, and, measuring from the bottom of the keel to the top of the dome over the working beam, the boat is 70 feet high. With all these immense proportions the boat is graceful, and to the nautical eye accustomed to our built-up boats looks safe, handy, and seaworthy. Passing through the Sound, where its proportions can be seen to advantage, its enormous bulk will present a sight unlike anything in European waters. By night its rows of windows, tier on tier, will shine upon the waters like a white phantom with myriad electric eyes drifting in silence along our coasts.

DOLPHIN NEWEL ON BOARD THE

"PURITAN.

The general arrangement of the saloons does not differ greatly from that of the older Sound boats, except that everything is upon a grander scale. The entrance on the main deck, with its lofty ceiling, wide stairways, and liberal doors, gives an impression of spaciousness that is wholly new afloat. This generosity of space is in key with American demands. There is

something in the spaciousness of the land that makes our people demand largeness and generosity in the way of public accommodations. The genius of our people runs more and more to Puritans and drawing-room cars, where there is room enough and to spare. This sense of bigness on the Puritan is not mere bigness and emptiness. A cathedral may be grand as well as lofty if its proportions are right, and it seems on this monster boat, with its lofty ceilings and ample saloons, that the builders knew whereof they wrought. There is size and space, yet by reason of the proportions and the treatment of the decoration there is also that sense of repose and general personal comfort so dear to the American heart.

The boat is distinctively a night boat. Its voyage begins before sunset and often ends before sunrise, and its sleeping accommodations must be ample and comfortable. It is safe to say that on the Puritan more attention has been paid to the lighting, heating, and ventilation of the rooms and the general comfort of the traveler who sleeps upon the Sound than on any other boat ever launched. There are 355 staterooms, many of them being regular chambers, with large windows, mirrors, and complete chamber furniture precisely as in a first-class dwelling-house. The entire boat, including berths in the cabin, gives sleeping accommodations for 1200 passengers. To place so many staterooms on the boat it was necessary to arrange them in rows. This has been done before on the Sound boats, but it has one very serious objection, and that is the want of light and air. Some of the older boats even had staterooms in the middle of the saloon, where absolutely no light or air could be obtained. On the Puritan this matter appears to have been carefully considered, and every stateroom has free ventilation by means of large transoms opening to the outer air. This is accomplished by covering the outside rooms with roofs, thereby leaving a space between the under side of the deck above and the roofs of these outer rooms. The rain cannot beat into this space, nor can any room be entered by the transoms, and yet there is a free circulation of air and plenty of light for the interior rooms next to the saloon. There will be no staterooms in the middle of the boat, thus doing away with all the dark rooms.

The decoration of the boat is in the style of the Italian Renaissance, the ornamentation being brought out by judicious gilding on an ivory-white ground. The railings of the galleries in the saloon are of wrought iron in the same general style, and all the interior woodwork is of the best quality and of the finest finish. The masts, which in the older boats were often overdecorated where they

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passed through the saloon, are in the Puritan of steel, and serve as ventilators, as well as supports for the electric-light fixtures. In point of fire protection, safety, and sanitary arrangements the boat is superior to anything yet built in this country, so that the boat is a perfect and complete hotel afloat, and as comfortable, safe, and luxurious as any conveyance on land or sea.

The motive power is of the usual beam engine type, except that it is a compound engine, the two cylinders being placed fore and aft, and connected with the working beam overhead. The high-pressure cylinder is 75 inches in diameter with 9 feet stroke, and the lowpressure cylinder is 110 inches with 14 feet stroke, and the engine is designed to develop 7500 horse-power, at a steam pressure of 110 pounds per square inch. The wheels are 35 feet in diameter with steel "feathering" buckets 14 feet long and 5 feet deep. The accompanying pictures give an excellent idea of this grand boat, with some suggestions as to her interior fittings. One picture may also serve to show the massive proportions of the engine and the working beam.

Among the Sound boats the City of Worcester, of the Norwich line, was one of the first to

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PANEL FIGURE, "PURITAN."

depart from the older type of night boats. This steamer was built in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1881, and has an iron hull 328 feet long, 46 feet wide, and 1411⁄2 feet deep. The gross tonnage is 1921 tons, and the boat draws when loaded 10 feet 3 inches. The City of Worcester is interesting because it was, when launched, regarded as the finest boat built for our Eastern waters. There are two decks above the main deck, and the saloons and cabins are arranged on a plan that undoubtedly suggested the arrangement of some of our later boats. The entrance, at the usual place just abaft the wheels, leads to the main deck saloon, and from this saloon a grand staircase, that occupies a place usually assigned to the ladies' cabin, leads to the saloon deck. The grand saloon extends the entire length of the house, with a single row of staterooms on each side as far as the engine-well. This saloon has no gallery and makes a low, dome-lighted room that is far more cozy and homelike than the saloons on longer boats. Forward of the engine is a saloon having a gallery for upper staterooms and arranged for a dining-saloon. This plan of placing the dining-room upstairs is certainly more agreeable, as the saloon is large, lofty, well lighted, and well ventilated. The City of Worcester was one of the first boats to use electric lights and one of the first boats to substitute hard wood for the old style of painted pine. The decorative woodwork is all in hard woods, and inlaid in excellent designs and decorated in good taste. In point of speed, comfort, and decoration this boat was really the pioneer of the splendid new fleet headed by the Puritan.

It is not easy to predict what is to be the future of this great boating interest. We have over twenty thousand miles of steam navigation, we have original and enterprising boatbuilders, and an enormous traveling public. We have had in the past a phenomenal fleet of steamboats, particularly on our Western rivers, and yet the business has been greatly depressed, and there are fewer boats afloat today than twenty years ago. Moreover, and this is the most serious matter of all,- our canals

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are being abandoned year by year. While
Europe spends millions on canals and water-
ways, while France is trying to make every
little stream navigable, and England is trying
to turn her interior cities into sea-
ports, we permit our canals to fill
up or foolishly give

them away to impecunious railroads for road-beds. Is it wise? Are we safe in trusting all our freight business to railroad corporations? To-day

we can, if the need come, send gun-boats inland from the Del

aware to New York Bay. If we permit the railroads to destroy the business of the canal between our ship-yards and our navy yards, we may be sure that in every European War office the fact of our folly is carefully noted for future reference. Once Great Britain fought a great battle to destroy the water route

fought to destroy a vital water route. Fortunately, the English generals who planned in London thus to cut the country in two failed, and yet to-day we are abandoning our canals. and see Our great

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internal steam navigation system decay without a thought of the consequences.

On the other handfor there is a brighter side to every picturethere is a disposition among the traveling public to demand larger, finer, and safer boats everywhere. We are being taught by English tourists who visit us how to see our own country. We may complacently talk of our limited trains and all that. Every foreigner who visits us asks first of all for our

that connects the port of New York with the steamboat routes, because our lake, river, and back door of New England. Saratoga was Sound boats are known of all the world.

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THE ADVANCE NLY a few years ago it seemed as though sordid ugliness was nowhere so firmly intrenched as in our ferry-boats, while the "floating palaces" on which we betook ourselves to Albany or Newport were synonyms for the most pretentious bad taste. There could not be a clearer sound of our progress in art than the fact that both these classes of boats are now being built to satisfy a cultivated eye as well as to transport a comfort-loving body with safety and speed.

IN STEAMBOAT DECORATION.
River line. The first step-and the most
novel that could have been taken - was to
select an artist of experience and skill and
give him complete control of the task. Every
item in the decoration and furnishing of the
Puritan has been conceived by Mr. Frank Hill
Smith, and designed and carried out under
his careful superintendence. The success which
he has achieved in a field where no precedents
guided him certainly deserves great praise. I
do not mean judged simply by the standard
set by the boat-interiors of other days-this
would be no test at all; I mean judged by the
same standard we should use if a luxurious
home or great public building were in ques-
tion. It may be thought by some that soberer

The most conspicuous example of a desire to put really good decorative work into a steamboat interior is the Puritan of the Fall

colors and a smaller amount of ornamental detail would be more appropriate in so utilitarian an interior, Mr. Smith's scheme showing only white and very pale colors and a profuse employment of gold as well as of carven or molded decoration in low relief. But the American people are accustomed in these great inland vessels to awkward attempts at ball-room effects, and will unquestionably be better pleased with this artistic version of the same idea than with any other kind of treatment that could have been chosen; and, after all, the critic's place is not to weigh an artist's conception in the balance of other person's tastes, but to accept it frankly and only discuss the quality of its expression.

The first point of excellence to be emphasized is that Mr. Smith gives us no mere heterogeneous assemblage of pretty patterns and tints, but a systematic scheme of adornment, based on architectural principles, coherent throughout, carefully studied in all its varied details, and executed with technical skill. Italian Renaissance forms served as his inspiration, and every item from end to end of his elaborate work is harmonious in character and as well adapted in scale as in motive to the exact place it holds.

Reaching the quarter-deck we find the walls divided into panels by fluted pilasters which support a dignified frieze in low relief. The panels are filled with half-draped floating female figures, in very low relief, which were modeled by the well-known sculptor Mr. Donoghue. These figures are of an ivory-white tone, relieved against a pale yellow background. All the architectural features are likewise ivorytoned and are lavishly gilded. The ordinary staterooms are finished throughout in wood, painted white, and perfectly plain. The larger rooms are simply but prettily decorated in white, and the tender tones of blue, yellowish pink, and yellow everywhere employed, with less use of gold than appears in the saloons. The diningroom is dignified and attractive, and even the barber-shop has neither been neglected by the artist nor over-adorned. But, of course, the center of interest is the main saloon with its encircling gallery leading to the upper tier of staterooms. Here the festal effect of Mr. Smith's scheme is most strikingly apparent, and, when the great space is lighted by its multitude of incandescent burners, the " average citizen" will have his love for a gay and luxuriouslooking environment fully met, while a more critical eye will be disturbed by no heavy excess or trivial fantasticality. It is impossible to dwell here upon the details of this saloon, which is covered with a pale-blue ceiling, while a red carpet gives it warmth and richness. I can only say a word about the wrought-iron screens VOL. XXXVIII.—49.

which, supported by solid gilded piers, form the gallery rail. Their design is extremely graceful, and, fortunately, they are not gilded, but left black to bring a needed accent of vigor and decision into the pale delicacy of the general scheme. Still more attractive and much more original than this railing are the ironwork supports for the electric lights, forming coronals around the masts and extending upward to the gilded capitals, that give the masts an architectural character, in graceful spirals from which the lights project at varied angles. Unfortunately our little illustration does not show how beautiful and dignified yet extremely effective these fixtures really are; but the general character of their design can be appreciated, and the good sense and good taste which have known how to serve a novel practical purpose thoroughly well by means of a novel and expressive manner of treatment.

In the New York, the new day boat of the Albany line, we find agreeable rooms, sensibly treated in those dark tones which were altogether desirable when service in the hot hours of summer was to be considered. The walls are paneled to the top with ash, and the carpets are green; and while the details can hardly be called artistic in treatment, the general color-effect is charming, except as regards the tones supplied by stained glass of rather crude and glaring tints.

But perhaps the most wholly satisfactory piece of decoration that has yet been set afloat is found-shall I be believed?—in a ferryboat designed to carry the long-suffering “suburban resident" upon his daily trips from Hoboken to New York. The Bergen being a screw instead of a side-wheel steamer, the cabins run through from end to end; and the purely utilitarian reasons which prescribed her external lines have resulted in an imposing perspective of singularly graceful curvature. There would have been some monotony, however, had the whole length been left unbroken; so the artist skillfully divided it by the projecting screens shown in our picture, which cut the walls into three compartments without at all interfering with convenience or the freedom of the eye. The central compartment is much shorter than the others, and its decoration is emphasized by a large mirror against the inner wall and a more elaborate window than those on either side. All the windows are grouped in threes — a vast improvement upon the old uniform rows. The walls in the women's cabin are wainscoted with oak and then painted a neutral grayish green with a band of simple Renaissance decoration in white and a little gold. Parallel with the window tops runs a cornice-strip of oak, and above this again is a simple painted frieze. The faces of

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