Читать книгу The Story of the Sun: New York, 1833-1918 онлайн

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The beginning of regular transatlantic steamship service did not find in the Sun a completely joyous welcome—thanks, perhaps, to the temperament of Lieutenant Hosken, R.N. He was an officer of the Great Western, a side-wheeler of no less than thirteen hundred and forty tons, with paddles twenty-eight feet in diameter. This new ship, built at Bristol, and a marvel of its time, reached New York, April 23, 1838, after a passage of only sixteen days! The Sirius, another new vessel, got in a few hours ahead of the Great Western, after a voyage of eighteen days. The Sun said of this double event:

Of the conduct of the officers in command of the Great Western, we regret that we are compelled by reports to place it in no very favorable contrast with the gentlemanly demeanor of the officers of the Sirius. Every attention has been paid her, citizens have turned out to welcome her arrival, she was saluted by the battery on Ellis’s Island, et cetera, et cetera, and thousands of other demonstrations of courtesy were made, which proved only throwing pearls before swine. A news boat was ordered to keep off or be run down, and the hails of that boat and others were answered through a speaking-trumpet in a manner which would have done toward the savage of Nootka Sound, but is not exactly the style in which to meet the courtesies of members of a community upon which the line of packets depends in a large part for success. One would have thought that all the impudence of Europe was put on board a vessel built of large tonnage expressly for its embarkation. By the time our corporation officers have run the suspender-buttons off their breeches in chase of Lieutenant Hosken, R.N., they will discover that they have been fools for their pains.