she pays wharfage again. It is not so high, but it
is a large item, and requires the cash. Again, there is the great
shore establishment which every steam company must maintain. Large
docks, and warehouses, and coaling arrangements, staging, watchmen,
porters, and messengers, and a shore-captain equal to those on board,
must all be maintained. The Havre Company pays to the city $4,000 per
year for its dock, $1,200 for its annual repairs, and also for sheds,
fixtures, etc., extra. They keep also two watchmen at $40 each per
month, and other persons in the dock service. The Collins Company have
a necessarily very costly dock both in New-York and Liverpool. That in
New-York would rent for $15,000 per annum. The one in Liverpool is far
more costly. On each they keep a large number of men, with watchmen,
gatekeepers, runners, porters, and clerks, and always keep an office
open. Beside this, is the whole paraphernalia of the office of the
company. There must be offices, clerks, bookkeepers, porters, runners,
etc.; a president, treasurer, and secretary; an attorney, agents, and
agencies; and newspaper advertising, and a hundred little things which
no man can mention. I do not pretend to be able to give an adequate
conception of the innumerable items which so swell the large actual
working expenses of regularly running steamers. Even the charities of
a decently managed company are large. Firemen and engineers become
disabled and must be supported; or they are killed in the service of
the ship, leaving families which no decent company can disregard. The
amount which the West-India Royal Mail Company pays in this way, and
which our noble American lines advance to the deserving, are beyond
all conception of the mere theorist.

There is another source of loss which prevents, mail packets
especially, from paying their expenses on their freight and passenger
earnings. The table on all of our steamships has become exceedingly
expensive, as it has in our hotels. Perhaps there is more necessity
for it on steamers than in the hotels, as passengers are generally
sea-sick, and need every delicacy of life to keep them up. The
supplies which our fine mail packets carry for this purpose are of
almost incredible extent and costliness. No vegetable, fruit, game, or
other rarity that can be kept fifteen days in large masses of ice, is
neglected; so that the table of every steamer is necessarily both
luxurious and expensive. Indeed, it has become