[Illustration: The Saloon of a Hamburg Steamer.]
These figures mean that Americans are getting rich enough to travel: nothing more. An agent of an excursion company said to me during 1889:
“It doesn’t need an Exposition in Paris to induce travel. Europe is the loadstone! All we have to do is to show people that they can get to _Europe_ at a moderate cost, and that fetches ’em.”
The same men who keep these records at the Barge Office say that at least eighty per cent. of the arrivals from Europe represent people who live in this country; that is, that not more than 20,000 people during 1890 arrived in New York who did not live here, or who were not returning to their homes. Furthermore, it should be noted here that New York has become to so great a degree the port to which transatlantic business tends, that not more than fifteen per cent. of either immigrants or cabin passengers land at any other port. A few go to Boston, or Philadelphia, or Baltimore; and a few come in _via_ Quebec and the northern border; but the figures at New York really represent the volume of passenger traffic.
It is not possible to give an exact comparison between the traffic now and when passenger steamships first began to run between this country and Europe; but it will be remembered that the Cunards, beginning in 1840, had only four regular vessels. Now there are twelve steamship lines who have regular sailing days each week, and some have sailings twice and three times a week; they all terminate or begin in New York, and on these lines there are eighty-five steamships which carry saloon and steerage passengers. These lines make landings at Queenstown, Liverpool, Southampton, Havre, Bremen, Hamburg, Moville (Londonderry), Glasgow, Antwerp, Boulogne, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen. No line employs less than four boats, and the Hamburg-American line keeps nineteen in commission. The North German Lloyd Company has the largest fleet of express steamships; there are twelve in commission between New York, Southampton, and Bremen. This great fleet of eighty-five vessels is composed of the following lines, given in the order in which they were established: Cunard line, 1840; Inman line, 1850; Allan line, 1853; Hamburg-American line, 1856; Anchor line, 1856; North German Lloyd line, 1857; French line (Compagnie Générale Transatlantique), 1862; Guion line, 1864; White Star line, 1870; Netherlands line, 1872; Red Star line, 1873; Thingvalla line, 1879. Besides these lines there is also the Anchor line, Fabre line, and the Florio line to Mediterranean ports; Wilson line to London, and also to Hull; National line to London, and also to Liverpool; Hill line to London; Union line to Hamburg; and Baltic line to Stettin. All these lines carry passengers.