FIRE-PROOF FERRYBOATS REQUIRED.

FIRE-PROOF FERRYBOATS REQUIRED.

The destruction by fire last Summer of the Sound steamer Naragansett and the steamboat Seawanhaka, with the terrible loss of life that ensued in each instance, aroused in the public a lively sense of the danger to which human life is exposed on board the hundreds of steamboats that ply about our harbor. There are steamboats that, during the season, make daily excursions to every place along the seaboard to within thirty miles of New York. Many of them ply regularly several times a day between the city and Long Branch, Coney Island, Rockaway and other favorite Summer resorts. The number of passengers they carry will aggregate millions during the season. These boats are floating death-traps; mere tinder boxes, that would be consumed in fifteen minutes if a fire got well under way; they have scarcely any appliances for extinguishing fires, and their means for saving life are wholly inadequate. When the Seawanhaka burned, the passengers were forced to jump overboard to escape the fury of the flames within ten minutes after it broke out. and but for the fact that the boat was near shore, and the brave Captain had the courage to remain at the wheel until the boat was beached, it is doubtful if a single person on board would have escaped alive. The destruction of the Naragansell was equally rapid. Other fires occurred on other steamboats during the season, and it was simply Providential that more lives were not sacrificed to this practice of building steamboats in the most cheap and combustible manner.

The Scientific American recently printed an excellent article on this subject, claiming that our ferryboats are a constant peril to the many thousands who are compelled to use them. The repeated demands of the public for the use of fire-proof material in building passenger steamers for inland navigation seem likely at last to be complied with. A company has been formed with a capital of $10,000,000 to build excursion steamers for use in the waters around New York. They are to be not only indestructible by fire, but also impossible to sink. The use of fire-proof material for the upper works and water-tight compartments in the hulls should be made compulsory in the construction of all new steamers carrying passengers on the inland waters of the country. In view of the fearful accidents that have happened ever since steam navigation became general, it is strange that such conditions have not long since been required of our shipbuilders; but evidently this greatly needed reform will be brought about by that much abused doctrine, the *• survival of the fittest; ” for it the public is offered a choice between a floating fire-trap, liable to be sunk like an eggshell, and an equally elegant but fire-proof and non-sinkable craft, the fire-trap will soon cease running for lack of patronage.