Page:Walker - An Unsinkable Titanic (1912).djvu/182

AN UNSINKABLE TITANIC and under these conditions even the long rent which was torn in her plating would have done no more than set her down slightly by the head. Her pumps would have taken care of the leakage of water through the bulkheads, and the ship would have come into New York harbour under her own steam.

But a warship and a passenger ship are two very different propositions. The one, being designed to resist the attack of an implacable enemy, who is using every weapon that the ingenuity of man can devise to effect its destruction, is built with little if any regard to the cost. The other, built as a commercial proposition for the purpose of earning reasonable dividends for its owners, and exposed only to such risks of damage as are incidental to ocean transportation, is constructed as economically as reasonable considerations of strength and safety may permit.

Another important limitation which renders it impossible to give a passenger ship the elaborate subdivision of a warship, is the necessity of providing large cargo spaces and wide hatchways for the convenient handling and stowage of the freight, upon which a large [ 162 ]