Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, July 27, 1902, Page 26

VIEW OF THE DOCKS AT LIVERPOOL. (Copyright, 1902, by Frank G. Carpenter.) IVERPOOL, England, July 16.— (Special Correspondence of The Bee.)—The British are still wor- rled over the sale of their great- est steamship company to Pler- pont Morgan's trust. Nothing connected with the American invasion has created so much real excitement and heartfeit alarm. The sale of the White Star is looked upon by many as almost treasonable and the gov- ernment has been asked to interfere, but so far nothing has been done. The White Star buildings here have been taken over by the trust and the offices will be remod- eled on American lines. Liverpool is one of the centers of the American invasion. It is the chief port of England, outside London, and the port to which the most of our American goods come. It has long been second among the English ports, but the trust is now consid- ering the landing of some of the White Star steamers at Southampton, and, if eo, Liverpool may eventually lose its prece- dence. Southampton is within a much shorter distance of London. It has about three miles of splendid docks, and in this respect can handle goods as easily as Liv- erpool. Biggest Docks of World. The shipping facilities here are one of the wonders of the world. The town, which is the second largest in England, is on the sloping right bank of the Mersey, ubout three miles from the open sea. Just opposite the city the Mersey is only a mile wide, but further inland it expands and forms a basin about three miles across. It has two channels for the entrance of ves- sels and the water is so deep that the larg- est steamers can enter without danger. The tide here, however, Is very great. It has a fall of thirty-two feet at certain times of the year and this has necessitated the building of the docks. These docks now flank the Mersey for a distance of seven miles. There are sixty of them, great vats of water, each covering acres, surrounded by massive walls of stone and entered by Iron gates, which can be closed to keep out the tide, The gates work just like the lock of & canal, and when shut the water within them is as qulet as a millpond. There are in all 388 acres of such docks along the Mersey and twenty-six mlles of quays. There is an clevated raliroad which runs from one end of the docks to the other. It is bullt ‘upon a wall high up above the street, the ralls being lald on semi-cylin- ders of iron, The trains are somewhat like those of the elevated railroad of New York, save that the cars are first and second- % “fig the rallroads, so that the goods can be taken almost from the ships to the trains. The largest of all is the Alexandra dock, which has a water area of forty-four acres. It is into this dock that the most of our great grain ships come. The grain is ur loaded by means of enormous revolving belts which take it under the roadway and carry it to the elevators, situated about a quarter of a mile from the landing. I went over the largest of these elevators during my trip along the quays. It is modeled after those built in the United States and some of ite machinery is American. By means of these bands and an endless chain of buckets a stream of grain Is carried almost directly from the ship under the street to the tops of the eleva- tors. It is here emptied into 500 great silos, each of which will hold about tons. From the silos it can be let”out into bage by the turn of a lever and.thus shipped over the country. All of the ship« ping of our wheat through the interior is in bags. A great deal of it goes on the cars, some on barges through the canals and not a little on carts and wagons, hauled by the emormous borses for which England and especially Liverpool is fa- mous. Liverpool’s Floating Quay. Consul Boyle tells me that the landing stage at Liverpool e the largest thing afloat. I can well belleve it. The Celtic, the Oceanic and the Great Eastern put together would be nothing like the size of this mighty raft. It is more than half a mile long and from 80 to 100 and more feet wide. It would just fill F street, in Washington, from the pension office to the Treasury department, and it has itseif a roadway as smooth and solid as the asphalt streets of our national capital. This enormous raft floats on 200 iron pontoons, rising and falling with the tide. It has many bridges connecting It with the street, with passages for people ani carriages. These bridges are in the shape of enormous hinges, so fastened that they rise and fall as the great landing stage goes up and down with the tide. Upon the raft are walting rooms, ticket offices, offices for the ferries and shops selling newspapers and candles. The steamers, which used to land their passengers by tenders, now come directly to the landing stage, the baggage being carried on an endless chaln to the custom héuse across the road. These docks have cost i 1 took & ride on this road today to get a view of the Liverpcol shipping. We went warehouse after warehouse, and dock dock, passing steamers from all parts the world. There were enormous build- ings filled with cotton from the United States, grain elevators covering acres at which were being unloaded carloads of wheat from New York, Philadelphla and New Orleans, ihe largest tobacco warehouse of the world, fi'led with tens of thousands of hogsheads of the favorite weed of our southern states, and on by other warehouses where all sorts of American goods were belng landed from the Atlantic liners which carry passengers and freight. There were ships from Australia, India, China and the Cape of Good Hope, as well as salling ships almost every part of the world. About vessels come to Liverpool every year, tonnage which annually goes in and out of the port aggregates almost 25,000,000 R Enormous Vats of Water. I could show you one of these If you can imagine a line an acre to twenty , surrounded by the of masonry, upon which has been warehouses rising almost you may have some The ships discharge their into the warehouses and some direct connection with an enormous v LIVERPOOL FROM THE DOCKS—NOTICE AMERICAN TOBACCO TRUST'S SIGN ON STREET CAR. amount of money, but they are owned by the city. The total expenditure for mak- ing them was more than one hundred mil- lion dollars, but they bring in a revenue of $7,600,000 a year, so that on the whole they may be said to be a fairly good invest- ment. They are controlled by the dock board, consisting of men who are elected by those who pay dock dues to the extent of $50 per annum. The city 1is continually buying new ground for docks and improving the port in every way. It is now clearing away several blocks next to the landing stage and putting new streets through them. A part of this ground will increase the dock- ing space and another part will be given up to public baths, including what promises to be the finest Turkish bath of the world. This Turkish bath will be operated by the city at a little more than cost price, for the benefit of the public. Liverpool al- ready has public baths, where for a few cents you can have a swim or steam, first, second and third-class, according to your pocket. The city owns many of the warehouses. It owns the street cars and charges from 2 cents to 4 cents a ride, according to dis- tance. It has technical schools, public wash houses, where poor women can go to laundry their clothes, and it has built a number of workingmen's dwellings, which it rents out at a little more than cost to the poor. The ferries crossing the Mersey are owned by the town of Birkenhead, on the opposite side. They are well managed and at penny fares are making money. Liverpool Horses. The business of Liverpool can be best seen along the wharves. The enormous cargoes brought here every day are car- ried through the city in wagons pulled by draft horses which have not their equals anywhere. They are Clydesdales or Shira horses. largest ' Percheron or Norman, but seem much stronger than either. I have never seen such loads. A single horse will walk off with from two to five tons with appar- ent ease. The one-horse wagons look like billiard tables on wheels and the two- horse wagons are much larger, some welghing as much as two tons. The ordi- nary load for two horses is seven or eight tons, and, with the wagon, a team some- times carries as much as ten tons through these streets. I know these statements will be looked upon as exaggerations In They are not so heavy as tue' LIVERPOOL'S MIGHTY LANDING STAGE—THE BIGGEST THING THAT FLOATS. the United States, but they are true. The ordinary bale of cotton weighs 400 or 500 pounds. I eaw a team carrying thirty bales as ome load this morning, ‘or from six to seven toms. The bales were piled up to the height of our hay wagons when in full load at harvest time. I saw equally large loads of merchandise, tobacco and lumber. The horses appareatly had no trouble in pulling them and walked con- tentedly along, directed by their drivers, who moved on foot beside them. These Shire horses are costly. The price for the average work animal is from 50 to 100 guineas, or from $250 to $500. Some sell as high as 150 guineas, there being one man in Liverpocl who uses horses only of this class. The cart drivers are noted for their care of their horses. Indeed, it is sald, they treat them much better than they do their wives. The harness is kept shin- ing, the skins of the animals are like satin and their manes and tails are often braided. The hoofs are kept olled and blacked and the legs are washed down several times daily. The horses are not pushed and they look uniformly well, On the 1st of May, the time of the draft horee parade, the carters decorate their horses with flowers and ribbons and prizes are given to the best team. The streets of Liverpool leading up from the docks have tracks of flagstone about a foot wide for the heavier wagons, but much of the hauling is done on streets as rough as those of New York. Liverpool in 1902, I am delighted with Liverpool. It is one of the best built of English cities and is more like an American town than many of the others. Its business blocks are of three and four stories, made of stone or brick. One of the finest office structures is the White Star buildings, now owned by the American shipping trust. It is a com- bination of red brick and sandstone, eit- uated not far from the docks. The city postoffice of Liverpool is, next to the London postoffice, the largest In Great Britain, having cost about a mil- lion dollars to build. It is the govern- ment telegraph office as well and con- nected with it there is a government tele- graph school. The telegraphs here belong to the government and in the postoffice the telegraphers have their own dining room, with a kitchen, a scullery and a grocery store. There are pneumatic tubes running from the telegraph department to the postoffice, the different newspaper offices, and thousands of telegrams which come to the press daily are thus trans- mitted more quickly than by messengers. Among the other great buildings of Liverpool are the cotton exchange, where the brokers meet to buy and sell Ameri- can and other cottons, and St. George's hall, which is used partly as a court room "and partly for public meetings and con- certs. In this hall is one of the largest organs of the world. It belongs to the city and is played twice a week for the benefit of the public at 6 pence per head. The organ cost $50,000 and it has 8,000 pipes and 108 stops and it is worked by ;.llltum engine in the vault below the John Bull’'s Shipping. I have yet to meet a single Englishman who is pleased with the shipping combina- tion. I have talked with people of all claeses and they 21l look upon it as a very serious thing for Great Britain, and feel that it may mean the lose of her supremacy on the ocean. They fear that the other great ships of the country may go the samc way, and that, through our trade associa- tion with France and Germany, Great Britain will lose her large carrying trade. Today the British have more ships than any other people of the world. They have. all told, about 35,000 vessels in the Uniied Kingdom and the colonies, and their ton- nage amounts to more than ten millions. They carry about two-thirds of their own goods and a large proportion of those of other nations. They carry more than 50 per cent of our exports and imports. They carry 44 per cent of the foreign trade nf\\‘ Russia and a like amount of that of Bel- glum and Holland, 43 per cent of the im- ports and exporgl of France, 29 per cent of the imports and exports of Germany and 23 per cent of those of Italy are carried in English bottoms. There are more than a quarter of a mil- lion men from th!s country whose business is following the sea, and there are thou- sands at home interested in ships and ship- ping. The loss of the shipping trade would therefore imperil the lifework and positions of these thousands, and also that of the other businesses connected with them. The national feeling in regard to British supremacy on the seas Is still very strong. As children they have been taught that the oceans are to a large extent their property, (Continued on Eighth Page.) 1 Lion Goffee way—sealed packages, al- ways correct in weight, clean, fresh, uniform and retaining its rich flavor, - i i ks . an g i