It would seem that Mr. Bessemer's delightful plans for saving
us from sea-sickness in crossing the Channel are really maturing, and that Mr. E. J. Reed, formerly naval architect to the Admiralty, is now settling the plans of a couple of vessels with saloons 90 feet long by 30 feet broad and 20 feet high, which are to be kept steady by hydraulic apparatus, even while all the rest of the vessel is virtually tossing in a storm. Above the saloon will be a pro- menade deck, seventy feet in length, of, of course, equal stability. "In the roughest weather," says Mr. Bessemer, "this saloon and the deck will not be subjected to a greater amount of motion than is felt in an ordinary railway carriage." Surely Mr. Bessemer's name will be blessed for ever, if he succeeds. Ought there not, indeed, to be a sort of secular canonisation invented for such benefactors of their race as these ? Of course, to make the thing complete, the steady part of the vessel will be in full sight of the un- steady, where the passengers unable to pay for exemption from sea- sickness will be visible, and so give the richer even a costlier luxury than that attributed by the great Latin poet to the safe observer of shipwreck. Our age is not cruel enough to enjoy seeing terrible sufferings from a safe position, but we think the sight of the worst of discomforts from a position of perfect humanity would not be disagreeable to it.
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