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16 eee immigrant as an object of interest. - The sanitary arrangements are ex- cellent and the closest medical sup- ervision is observed. Twice a day the ship's surgeon goes through the steerage accompanied by the captain, and any passenger found suffering from a contagious disease is quaran- tined. Formerly disease spread un- checked in'the steerage. The Italian' government sends a government sur- geon on every ship leaving for America, and. stipulates that the steamship company shall furnish a certain amount of meat every day to each passenger. Recently a captain of one of. the German lines, having a port of entry in Italy, was arrested "because he gave his passengers more meat than the law designated. The prosecuting officer said that the cap- tain was aiding and tony.: : 5 AN ANCIENT CHARTER PARTY. ~The mayor of Gravesend, England, sends to the London Times, the fol- lowing copy of a charter party--prob- ably the oldest extant--of which he holds the original: "Know all those who shall see and hear this charter that Sir Hugh de Berham, in the name and place of Sir Adam de Limbergue, constable of the castle of Bordeaux, and on be- half of our lord and king of England, duke of Gufenne, and in the name and place of our said lord the king, and duke, has freighted and ladened at Bordeaux, the Coq, "our Lady of Lyme;' of Walter Giffard, the mas- ter, 93 tuns and 18 pipes of wine, whereof are one tun four pipes of stock wine, and 44 tuns of flour, to go to Newcastle-on-Tyne straight- way, for nine shillings of good crown sterlings of England, each tun of freight at the rate of 21 tuns one pipe for 20, and the residue of the pipes two for the freight of one Tun. For which freights the said master acknowledges that he was paid in the sum of £7 2s of good crown sterl- ings of England in part payment of the said freight, and held himself thereof well paid. And within fifteen days, counting one day after another, after God, he shall have conducted and brought the said ship across to safety to her right discharge. The wine and flour shall be discharged and the master paid for all his freight without any delay and any demurrage. Towage and petty lademanage are on the merchants. And when the ship left Bordeaux the master and the merchants were in good peace, and in good love, and without any quarrel. That is to say, the eighth abetting: glut- - which TAE MARINE REVIEW t day from the end of May 'A, De 1322; King Charles reigning in France, Ed- ward reigning in England, duke of Guienne ( * * * ), archbishop of Bordeaux. Witnesses, Richard Espar- ver, Thomas Rosen, P. Mauran, John de Rosordo, and that John Alcin, no- tary public of the Duchy of * * * of June, which P. Mauran, registrar of charters, wrote by my will +." The parchment bears the following en- dorsement: "Sum of the freight of the ship of Walter Giffard, master of the ship, the St. Mary Coq of Lyme, £53 11s, of which are paid by A. de Limbergue £7 2s, and by Polhowe £46 10s. He delivered to Polhow 86 tuns of wine and 43 tuns of flour, and there are wanting 16 tuns of wine." WALTER J. BALLARD. SHIPS THAT PASSED IN THE FOG. The following communication which was published in the New York Sun is of interest to every one aboard ship: I have noticed in the Sun of May 9 an account. of the meeting of the North German. Lloyd R: M.. S. Kaiser Wilhelm IT and the German protected cruiser Bremen, and should esteem it a great favor if you would allow me space in your valuable paper to. give my account. Now, I wit- nessed the meeting of these two ships and would like to give my own opinion as a sailor of experience in this matter, and hope it will be re- ceived in the spirit it is téndered, i. e., the opinion of a sailor on an or- 'dinary nautical situation. It was not what one would call a heavy fog at all, and vessels could be seen by a seaman, whose eyes are trained to this kind of work, at a distance of. from one and a half to two miles (nautical). The Bremen's foghorn was contin- ually heard a good time before she was sighted, and consequently her location was fixed. This can be done by those who are practiced, but not by others. The warship Bremen was painted white, and it is an acknowledged fact that it is much harder to. fix dis- tances with a white painted ship in a fog than a black painted one, hence the experienced man is to the fore again, and in this instance particu- larly so, as all the other vessels that had been sighted during the voyage were painted in dark colors. I should give her distance, if asked in-a'court of law--as a nautical asses- sor, in which capacity I have acted on several occasions--as about one mile when first actually sighted, please note was some little time after she had been located, and never at less than 1,500 to 2,000 ft., and I also consider it was correct to keep up a good speed to enable the navigator to handle his vessel properly under the circumstances. In conclusion, without knowing who 'handled the ship, I wish to put on record that it was one of the smart- est maneuvers I have ever witnessed, both in practice and theory, includ- ing all details, and were I a ship owner, whether the captain was in charge or any particular officer of the watch, I would very willingly put him in charge of my ship. DuNCAN C, MACINTYRE, Commander, R. N. R. Fall River, Mass., May 9. SUBMARINE SIGNALS. The Shipping List and Lloyd's Gazette (Liverpool) of March 19, commenting on the annual report of the North Ger- man Lloyd Co., says: "The company has something to say about submarine bells, and an intimation -- is given that before long no fewer than four important points on the German coast will be provided with submarine signaling apparatus. It is apposite to remark that if ever the usefulness of this system was apparent a case was made for it by the wrecks in the English chan- nel reported yesterday. The Suevic could hardly have got on the rocks had there been a submarine bell to warn her, and the same would probably have been the case with the Jebba. People may talk about this or that form of illuminant _as being more especially suited to foggy weather, or of this or that explosive sig- nal as being the best. But, when all is said and done, by far the simplest. and most effective means of avoiding wreck is found in the submarine bell, which, -in- different to gale or the density of the atmosphere, repeats in the silent waters its warning note to the ship which may be heading .to destruction.' The one-hundredth anniversary of the launching of its first vessel will be celebrated by the town of, Searsport, Me., the coming summer. The first vessel built at Searsport was the schoo- ner Friendship, launched in 1807. Of the 202 vessels built in Searsport, 33 were brigs, a rig now nearly obsolete in American registry. Searsport. has built 15 ships, but the favorite rig of the old-time ship masters was the bark, of which Searsport has constructed 43. The first ship was the B. Aymar, of - 516 tons, built in 1840: the first of more than 1,000 tons was the Oneida of 1,180 tons, built in 1866, while the last and largest was the William H. . Conner, 1,496 tons, built in 1877.