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9. Ship of the Month - cont'd. er one of $185 a share by the Canada Steamship Lines interests, which a m a jority of the directors decided to accept for their individual holdings, stipulating that the purchasers pay the same price to every shareholder de positing stock before May 3 1 , and they issued a circular to shareholders on April 14 recommending their acceptance of the offer... "The report fo r 1915 showed that after paying a dividend of 10% and a bonus 2% on 'the paid u p capital stock, amounting to $115, 968, a balance of $162, 522. 33 was carried forward to this year, making a balance to the credit of profit and loss of $393,791.88. The four vessels named were valued at $1, 120, 000 and the paid up capital stock is $ 9 6 6 , 4 00 (nominal $1,000,000). For some time past, the company largely carried its own insurance risk, the insurance fund showing a credit balance at Dec. 31, 1915, of $ 1 3 5 ,6 8 9 .6 7 . The steamship earnings for the year were $ 3 0 1 ,6 9 0 .2 5 ... "The shareholders in the company number 230, which for the capital invol ved shows a very fair distribution of the stock. Some of the shares are held in Great Britain. The directors are: W. D. Matthews, President; J. H. G. Hagarty, Vice-President; A. A. Wright, Managing Director; Sir Edmund B. Osler, C. S. Gzowski, G. R. Crowe, Jas. Carruthers and S. Crangle. "At $185 a share for the stock, the buyers are paying $1 ,787,84 0 for the St. Lawrence property, which, taking into account the cash and other as sets, amounts to something like $4 7 a ton for the four boats. It was sta ted some time ago that the Canada Steamship Lines had collected insurance under its war risks at the rate of $68 a ton for every boat lost, and that the sales of boats had been at equally remunerative rates... " It would appear that the majority of the shares were transferred by the di rectors of the St. L. & C. S. N. Co. on April 2 0 , 1916, and that the rest of the shareholders deposited their holdings before May 31st, as stipulated, thus allowing the actual merger of the fleets. The actual transfer of the ownership of E. B. OSLER to Canada Steamship Lines Ltd., Montreal, took place on September 2 5 , 1916. With the sale, E. B. OSLER took on the livery of the C. S. L. fleet. Her hull became all red, including the forecastle and its rail. The cabins were grey with white trim. The stack was red with a black smokeband at the top, this design for the stacks of the fleet's steamers having been inherited from the Richelieu and Ontario Navigation Company Ltd., which was the largest of the companies involved in the series of mergers which led up to the for mation of Canada Steamship Lines. These colours were carried by E. B. OSLER at least into 1917. Within a few years after her purchase, however, the company adopted the more colourful stack design which had been used by the Northern Navigation Company Ltd., namely a red stack with a white band and a black top. As well, the vessels began to carry on their bows the white outline of a diamond, within which appeared the letters 'CSL' in white. By the early 1920s, the grey deckhouses of the C. S. L. boats had become a more fashionable white. With the opening of the 1927 season, the diamond insignia disappeared from the bows of the steamers, and their forecastles were painted white. At this same time, the name 'Canada Steamship Lines' was painted in large white letters, billboard-style, down the sides of the ships. Meanwhile, in 1926, there had occurred a general reorganization of the operations of the C. S. L. fleet, and the vessels of the Hall fleet were acquired. At this time, a general renaming of the various C. S. L. ships oc curred, with many of the freighters being renamed for cities, towns and counties across Canada. "People names" generally disappeared from the ves sels, although C. S.L. still desired to honour some of those persons w h o had been involved with the formation of the company, or who still were in fluential in its affairs. Accordingly, on October 1st, 1926, the name of E. B. OSLER was officially shortened to (b) OSLER, in the same manner that J. H. G. HAGARTY became (b) HAGARTY. As far as we are aware, OSLER's career with Canada Steamship Lines was ge nerally uneventful, and we know of no major accidents in which she ever was