SECOND CABIN.

Shannon News, 1 August 1924, Page 1

SECOND CABIN.

GAINS IN DIGNITY SINCE THE WAR. CONTRAST IN TYPES. Second class on ocean liners is not nearly so negligible nowadays is it was before the war. Officials" of'steamship Companies have pointed ,this out, travellers have felt it, and reporters are beginning to realise what it means. The second cabin musti always be included in searching for interviewing possibilities. A representative of one of the small European countries came to the United States lately to discuss with Secretary Hughes a debt of millions due to his Government, states the New York Times. When his boat arrived a shipping reporter went over the passenger list to check the Envoy's name. He failed to .find it "until he looked at the second cabin sheet. "It is not 'uncommon to find Government officials "and even persdns'of title from Central European countries travelling second class," an official of a trans-Atlantic line explained. "Many of these countries are so, poor or their currencies have depreciated so much, that their representatives can no longer afford first-class passage. Even though they are travelling at their Government's expense, they have a limited amount to spend and must keep within" it. In the second cabin, westbound, will be found, also, a good many persons of qualitly fr"Sm Central Europe to whom- the, economy of se-cond-class rates makes an appeal." Sharing the decks and dining-room with these men and women, he added,' is another class' contrasting' strangely with them. This type travelled in the steerage before the war. „"They believe that by coming second-class they will have an easier landing at New York,", he said, "than if they came third-class and passed through Ellis Island. Though it is true that secondclass passengers land at the same piers as tho first-class, the immigrant law applies to all classes; and a secondclass passenger who is not admissable under the law cannot ever enter the country any easier than if he' travelled third-class."

On east-bound voyages . the character of the second-class passengers is entirely different, he went on. Ships going to Europe take out prosperous Americans of European birth who are bound fox their native countries for a holiday. The number of English, Scotch and Scandinavians who "travel in this way is especially large. The standing of the second-cabin everywhere, in fact, has risen since" the. passing of the day when 75 dollars would buy a first-class ticket with a seat at the captain's table. As the price of first-cabin passage has gone into hundreds of dollars, students and educators have swung almost entirely into second-cabin. Occasionally Americans are found who prefer this class.