There was a rumor that the engineers who work on the steamships would be
called out and forced to go on strike. If this should prove true, every
kind of business would be interfered with, for no steamers could leave
the English ports without properly certificated engineers to run them,
and no foreign mail of any sort could be sent out or brought into the
country.

The agents of the great lines running between this country and England,
which are nearly all owned by English firms, declared that they were not
afraid of the strike hurting them. If their engineers should be called
out, they asserted that they could find plenty of men to fill their
places.

This is all very well from the point of view of the agents seated in
their comfortable offices, but very few of us would be willing to trust
our lives on the high seas to inexperienced engineers. We do not care to
ride on the cars in times of strikes when green hands are put on to keep
them running till the trouble is over, and on the cars we can get out
any moment we feel afraid. But on the ocean it is altogether a different
matter. There is no stopping the car and getting out at the next block,
and it would probably pay the steamship companies better to agree to the
engineers' terms than to run their ships empty.

* * * * *

The Duchess of Marlborough (formerly Miss Consuelo Vanderbilt) is now
the happy mother of a baby son who may one day be the Duke of
Marlborough.