The Sway of the Grand Saloon

The Glorious Age of passenger ships has ended. Here, splendors and miseries together, is the whole marvelous story. It begins on a January morning in 1818 when, frosted with snow, a creaking little New York packet ship starts for Liverpool with six passengers. It ends, mid-ocean, on a September night 150 years later when the mighty Queens Elizabeth and Mary blast valedictory salutes to one another and start for oblivion.