MARK TWAIN ON THE CUNARD LINE.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 219, 9 May 1873, Page 6

MARK TWAIN ON THE CUNARD LINE.

Mark Twain writes the following humorous sketch of the Cunard Steamship Company " It is a curious, self-possessed, oldfashioned Company, the Cunard. (Scotsmen, they are.) It was born before the days of steamships ; it "inaugurated ocean steam lines ; it never has lost more than one vessel; it has neVer lost a passenger's life at all; its: ships are never insured ; great mercantile firms do not insurie their goods sent over in Cunard ships ; it is rather safer to be in their ships than on shore. It is composed simply of two or three grandchildren who have stepped into the shoes of two or three children, who stepped into the shoes of a couple of old Scotch fathers ; for Burns and Maclvor were the Cunard Company when it was born ; it was Burns and Maclvor when the origiria-. tors had passed away ; it is Burns and Maclvor still in the -third generation —never has been out of the families. Burns was a Glasgow merchant, MacIvor was an old sea-dog, who sailed a ship for him in early times. That vessel's earnings were cast into a sinking fund ; with the money they built another ship, and then another, and thus the original packet line from Glasgow to Halifax was established. At that time the mails were slowly and expensively conveyed in British Government vessels. Burns and Maclvor ' and Judge Haliburton (Sam Slick) fell to considering a scheme of getting the job of carrying these mails in private bottoms. In order to manage the thing they needed to be quiet about it, and also they needed faster vessels. Haliburton had a nephew who was not a shining success in practical life, but

had an inventive head; - name, Sam Cunard. He took his old jack-knive and a shingle, and sat down and whittled out his enormous lioyal Mail Line of vessels that we -call: the Cunarders —a. very great navy it business in every ocean ; owning forty-five steamships of vast cost; conducting its affairs with the rigid method and system of a national navy ; promoting by merit, priority in routine, and for conspicuous service; using a company uniform; retiring superannuated and disabled men and officers on permanent pensions, and numbering its servants by hundreds and thousands. In its s 9wn privat%establishment in Liverpool it keeps four thousand men under pay. This is what Sam Ounard whittled out. Thafris to say, he whittled out a little model for "a fast vessel. It was satisfactory; he was instructed to go and get the mail contract simply under his own name he did it, and the Company became commonly known as the Cunard. Company ; then the Company tried steam and .made it work; they i prospered, and bought out Haliburton, and also Cunard's little interest; they j removed Cunard to England and made I him their London agent; -he grew very rich and unspeakably and when he died, he died not as a poor, dreaming, provincial whittler of experimental models, but as the great Sir Samuel Cunard, K.C.8., or G-.W.X., or something like 'that, -for the= reign had knighted him. Well, that Cunard Company is a great institution, and has got more money than you and I both put together; and yet none of the family ever write editorials or deliver lectures." i