Such steamships as the City of New York and the City of Paris, of the Inman line (which is now controlled by American capital, and may in a sense be regarded as an American enterprise), are designed so as to carry about 500 first-cabin passengers each, and the Etruria and Umbria, of the Cunard line, about 600; but these vessels carry less steerage passengers than other ships, which adds greatly to the comfort of saloon passengers. It is not probable that the $700,000 expended for the construction of a vessel of the Collins line would much more than suffice to pay for the decorations and conveniences afforded to passengers on the Inman ships. In correspondence with modern ideas they are subdivided into twenty-four water-tight compartments, and this, with due allowance for the architect’s notions, has led to the supplying of bath-rooms about the ship, according to the number of passengers carried; several suites of rooms on the promenade and saloon decks are arranged with bath-rooms and toilet-rooms. The second-class passengers have also their own bath-rooms, smoking-room, and saloon dining-room. The steerage is so divided that the third-class passengers are not only away forward, but aft also; and they have the whole of one deck to themselves for promenading and getting glimpses of ocean view.
These are features that apply to so many of the best steamships now plying between New York and European ports, that it would be unjust to describe any one ship as against another; but as the City of New York in 1890 made the highest average speed of all the Atlantic “greyhounds,” and for that matter the highest average speed of any steamship in the world, it is but fair to mention her wonderful performance. During the year 1890 she made eight trips to the eastward, and the average of each trip from Sandy Hook lightship to Roche’s Point, Queenstown Harbor, was six days, four hours, and five minutes; the average of her eight trips to the westward from Roche’s Point to Sandy Hook lightship was six days, five hours, and forty-four minutes. On the four trips each way from August to November, inclusive, her average west-bound voyages were six days and forty-two minutes, and the east-bound voyages six days and fifty-three minutes. For the whole season on her trips to the eastward she averaged 19.12 knots per hour, and to the westward 18.91 knots per hour. She has made a slightly better average than her sister, the favorite City of Paris, and she beat her powerful rival, the Teutonic, seven times out of ten during the season of 1890.