A WONDER OF THE WORLD.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16479, 19 February 1914, Page 6

A WONDER OF THE WORLD.

As a rule the result of a newspaper plebiscite on the seven wonders of the modern world would not be considered worth cabling from London, and yet the selection made is not without interest. In this mechanical age it is not at all surprising that triumphs of science and engineering should fill all the places and that art should be quite out of the running. Probably to newspaper readers on this side of the world the surprise of the list is the support given by the voters to a mere steam ship. But tho Imperatpr almost justifies its fame. This great German liner is so big that it carries more than five thousand people. The commander is a -commodore and he has five captains under him. There are seven other officers with masters' certificates, three doctors, twenty-nine engineers and three wireless operators. It has a ball-room that can be converted, into a town hall. To provide the oak beams and brick fireplace of the smokeroom an old English cottage, built in Tudor times, was demolished. The swimming bath copies an ancient Roman model, with mosaic floor, tiled sides and marble benches. The staterooms are real bedrooms, furnished' as they would be in a great hotel. On the boat-deck is a conservatory where flowers are grown to be sold in a florist's shop. Booksellers and stationers and chemists and sweet-sellers have their 6hops on board, and except for the fact that the "streets" are above one another and aro joined by lifts the passenger might almost imagine himself in a small and exceptionally well kept city on land. It is certain that no hotel ashore is better equipped. The Imperator even has a wide palm court, open to the air, where the illusion of life ashore is vividly produced. It is stated that travellers can cross tho Atlantic in the Imperator, leading an active, open-air existence and participating in all the festivities and exercises, without once catching sight of the sea. r lne aim of the builders, apparently, has been to persuade the passenger that he is not travelling by ship, but that ho is simply living within the precincts of an unusually large and magnificent hotel. Probably the Imperator deserves to be considered one of the wonders of the world, and the most wonderful thing about the great ship is the fact that it can be run at a profit.