Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1884 — Naming Steamers. [ARTICLE]

Naming Steamers.

The practice of giving what might be called family names to fleets of steamers has become almost universal among British ship owners. Formerly a ship, like a man in the middle ages, had no family name. The Cunard Company was the first to name its fleet systematically. We have now fleets named after States, cities, hills, and monarchs, and one of the first elements of respectability in a line of steamers is that the vessels should have a uniform system of nomenclature, or, in other words, a family name. The search for fleet names has led to occasional absurdities. Why, for example, should a ship be named after a city ? Cities never go to sea. Even Venice, the most maritime of cities, lies forever at anchorage in her lagoon. To go to sea in the City of Pittsburgh would be as absurd as it would be undesirable, and the man who would embark in the City of Cincinnati would be simply tempting sea-sickness. S-till more objectionable would it De to go to sea with a Parthian Monarch or an Ethiopian Monarch. A steamship is modern to the last degree, and there is no democracy which levels so surely as the waves. What, then, has the seafarer to do with “monarchs, ” and ancient monarchs at that? From a marine point of view they are as absurd as “cities,” and, if possible, more absurd than “hills,” “glens,” or “castles."— New York Times.