THE LINER LEVIATHAN.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 15836, 5 June 1919, Page 5

THE LINER LEVIATHAN.

BIG SHIP CARRIES CITYFUL,

New realisation, and for a good many people perhaps the first, of what a large ship the Leviathan is, follows reading the statistical report made on her last voyage from France to New York. She carried, it seems, 14,426 human beings, of whom 12,287 were American soldiers of various ranks, and the remaining 2139 her own officers and crew.

No ship, not even this one, ever carried as many people as this, and yet the Leviathan’s full capacity was not utilised, for, had there not been a misunderstanding on the part of somebody in .Washington, who did not know of all her possibilities, quarters for 600 more men would have been made on one of her decks by the erection there of “standee berths,” whatever they may be. This, it must be'remembered, was no ferry-boat trip of a few minutes or hours, but a trans-Atlantic journey of seven days, and all of these thousands, more .than live in many a self-respecting city, including not a few famous in history—had to be fed, and what that meant for the week is shown by the fact that 320 cooks, divided into watches, worked day and night, and in each 24 hours there were consumed, to mention only the more important comestibles, 35,000 eggs, 10,000 pounds of flour, 14,500 pounds of pork, 6000 pounds of butter, 3000 pics, 10,000 pounds .of apples, 1000 pounds of coffee, 1000 cans of condensed milk, 10,000 pounds of potatoes, and 3000 pounds of sugar. And at that, only two meals a day were served! It would be interesting to know how many of the Leviathan’s passengers were aware that her tonnage is considerably greater than was the combined tonnage of all the ships of the Invincible Armada that gave England such a scare in the sixteenth century, and that if the whole British Navy of that day had been added the Leviathan’s displacement would not have been much surpassed, Times have changed since then, but—well, there probably will be talking and writing about the Armada long after the Leviathan is forgotten.