THE GREAT EASTERN.

Marlborough Press, Volume I, Issue 9, 2 March 1860, Page 4

THE GREAT EASTERN.

The public were taken not a little by surprise by a startling report upon the Great Eastern, signed bv Messrs. Bayley, Patterson, and Jordan, which appeared in the columns of the Times on the 28th of November. The document is dated as far back as October 18; and was forwarded from Paris by an anonymous shareholder. It embodies the most serious charges against Mr. Scott Bussell. “We may remark, generally,” say Messrs. Bayley, Patterson, and Jordan, “ that, with the exception of a few cabins, the accommodations are by no means equal to those of a first-class passenger steamer, such as Cunard’s line, or the Boyal West India Mail steamers, but are very inferior—materials, workmanship, and furniture.” The rest of the report depicts something as different from the conception which we had formed of various other portions of the Great Eastern, as does its description of her cabin accommodations. If we are to rely upon the statements it contains, there is scarcely anything about her that is free from serious defects; the decks are not tight, and a great deal of inferior material and workmanship has been used in them—the accommodations for officers and crew are most imperfect; the beams are unsupported, and not connected throughout with each other and the hull; the cargo compartments are not strong enough; the dead lights are loose, and, consequently, leaky; there is no steam power for steering or for coaling purposes, and the general steering gear is insufficient; there are no arrangements for the warming of the cabins, or for the general ventilation of the ship; and the separate compartments, upon the existence of which her peculiar safety was to depend, are not separate after all, and are, consequently, wholly useless. These are only a few out of the many faults which Messrs. Bayley, Patterson, and Jordan enumerate; and, after reading their portentous catalogue of blemishes, we can scarcely wonder at their concluding intimation that it will cost a vast sum of money to put the Great Eastern in decent order, and that, even after this has been done, she will be “ a constant source of expense and annoyance to the company.” —Home Neios.