THE CARRIAGE OF GOLD.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVII, Issue I, 4 July 1896, Page 6

THE CARRIAGE OF GOLD.

Billions of dollars in gold are annually shipped across the Atlantic. It is known to everybody ;no attempt is ever made to conceal either the fact, or the names of the ships which carry the precious burden. On the contrary, whenever a large shipment of gold is to be sent to England every paper in the principal cities of the States ascertains the exact amount a day or two in advance, and publishes the news to the world. When a large amount of gold is to be shipped from San Francisco to New York the greatest secrecy is maintained until it has reached its destination. No such sums are ever brought overland at one time as are sent across the seas, and yet men risk their own lives and deliberately sacrifice those of others in holding up trains supposed to carry this golden treasure ; and there is not a treasure train running in the country that is not more carefully fitted up with a view to disappointing train robbers than the fastest Atlantic liner afloat.

In fact, to any one who has paid a visit to the specie rooms of any of the modern ocean greyhounds, and seen the insecurity of the same it seems almost surpassing that there has not come out of the West some enterprising gentleman of the Captain Kidd type, who, instead of holding up express trains for comparatively paltry sums, would equip a steam yacht with Maxim and other rapid-firing guns and make a business of holding

up transatlantic liners. After breaking open the specie rooms a few times he might regale himself with enough American gold to allow him to pose as a second Count of Monte Cristo for the remainder of his life. But this, in the whole history of steam navigation, has never been done ; strange as it may seem, not a single gold coin or brick has been lost from a specie room on a steamship in transit between the Eastern and Western hemispheres, except by wreck or collision. There are in reality but few steamships afloat to-day which are provided with specie-rooms that so much as deserve the name of ‘strong-rooms,’ to say nothing of vaults, and among the most lamentable farces indulged in to-day are the stories that have been printed of late of the extraordinary strength of these receptacles for gold, and the length of time it would take a professional bank burglar to open one. It would consume about five minutes of ‘ Old Bill ’ Vosburg's time, with his trusty kit of safe-cracking tools, to get into the strongest specieroom on board of our transatlantic steamers, for, in truth, they are but little stronger than those in which the delicacies in charge of the head steward are stored. Until about a decade ago all specie-rooms were located within the mail-rooms of ocean steamers. These mailrooms, almost without exception, were located well astern, just abaft the stern hatchway and between the first and second decks, or just above the hold. The specie-rooms were generally made of thin boiler-iron, with a door of the same material secured with two wrought-iron cross-bars, which were padlocked at the ends into sockets. The mail-room was, as a usual thing, lined with sheet-iron over timber on three sides, while the third side was generally the surface of a bulkhead, or one of the solid iron partitions which separate the hulls of all modern steamships into watertight compartments for the sake of safety. The ‘Fuerst Bismarck’ of the Hamburg line, is about the only vessel whose specieroom is located within its mail-room that can make any valid claim to security so far as this is dependent on steel walls and bolts and bars. The mailroom on this vessel is located abaft of the after-hatch-way, pretty well to the stern of the vessel, under the intermediate saloon. The specie-room is of steel and the door is well secured, while the mail-room itself is stronger than usual. The heavy steel door of the latter opens directly into the after-hatchway, and the gold, which is invariably shipped in boxes fifteen inches long by twelve inches wide and ten inches deep, is lowered by means of a block and fall, upon the end of which is a common sling, which, as it reaches the door of the mail-room is quickly pulled inside and emptied of its precious burden ; then it returns for another box, while the former one is stored away within the strong-room in ship-shape fashion.