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4 MARINE REVIEW. CHICAGO LAKE INTERESTS. WESTERN OFFICE, MARINE REVIEW, { No. 13 Western Union Building, CHICAGO, IIl., June 2. In all the time your correspondent has been on the Chicago board of trade he never saw more excitement than on Tuesday, about noon, when the corn corner collapsed, and May corn dropped from $1 to 50 cents in less than no time. A man could no more charter boats then than he could have sold seats to the opera when the brimstone began to get hot at Sodom. 'Now that the wind is all out of corn it onght to begin to move in better shape, but it will tuke two or three days before the markets 'will settle down to a calm after the great storm. From indications at Cleveland it is evident that corn cannot be- gin to moye too soon for vessel profit. Vessel men have suffered a good deal by board of trade gambling which has so demoralized the corn trade that it could not be sold to eastern consumers for over a month. Lake transportarion to the world's fair is getting decidedly mixed. One result of the muddle was that hundreds of people were taken out to the fair grounds and unloaded last Sunday, and then refused admittance, although they tendered their gate money to the police. The action of the word's fair people was what might be called, without any undue violence to the Eng- lish language, an outrage, and the next day they backed down by a public an- nouncement that people would be allowed to land at the park and enter the world's fair grounds from the lake on payment of 25 cents. This is to con- tinue until the syndicate has steamers of its own carrying passengers to the park. The claims of the syndicate are something wonderful. Members who own a one-tenth share are bragging that they are offered $25,000 for one-half of that, making the contract worth $500,000. If they were wise, they would accept. It looks as if the Lake Carriers' Association were free of Capt. P. W. Egan, who has furnished so much unpleasant notoriety for them by his mys- terious disappearance. Capt. Egan's story of his disappearance was quite too eauzy for belief. If he had been really robbed and taken to Rochester, the most natural thing for him would have been to complain to the Rochester police, but he did nothing of the kind. There are some people who think that the missing man never got outside of Chicago, and that the so-called Rochester letters were written here and sent there for re-mailing. The Norwegian steamer Wergeland will be on the lakes returning to Bergen, Norway,by the time the Rrvirw reaches Chicago this week. As the guest has gone, it may not be inhospitable to say that no lake captain would » have permitted his boat to be in the shape that the Wergeland was Sun- day, when 10,000 or 15,000 people, mostly Norwegians of the city, in" spected it. The steamer was unequivocably dirty, the decks looking as if they had not been washed off for weeks. The hold had considerable water in it, no effort having been made to clean it up for inspection, and the stench that came up from its depths as people looked down out of curiosity, was nauseating. Any lake captain who dressed up his boat with all colors flying, but neglected to even sweep out the house, would be considered a slovenly shipkeeper. The stay of the Norwegian in port was made very pleasant. O. A. Thorpe, who hired the Wergeland at so much aday for the trip,lost money on the venture, but what he lost was more than made up bythe very goodadvertisinghis business as Norwegian exporter and importer secured. Mr. Thorpe seems to be a very enterprising man, and he is certainly entitled to all the credit that may come from the trip. From all indications Chicago millionaires are at last going to become in- terested in yachting. There has not been such a boom for yachts since the days of the old Chicago Yacht Club as there is this spring. Men-who have made their fortunes on the board of trade and in legitimate business are put- ting their money into yachts, both sail and steam. At the present rate Chicago will be able to have a first-class yacht club by next year, and one will probably be organized this summer for lake sport preparatory to the world's fair year. A Milwaukee paper said the other day that lake captains who call there were incensed because the Chicago collector of customs would not let them clear direct to Lake Krie ports when they were going to Escanaba to load ore. There seems to be a wide diversity of custom in the customs service in regard to these regulations. The deputy collector at South Chicago does not follow the same rule as the barge office of Chicago though both are in the same dis- trict. The Milwaukee collector makes no pretense of enforcing the regula- tion. In the opinion of some people collectors have no voice in the matter at all, The captain can clear for where he wants to go, and he can stop and take on and discharge as many cargoes between the two points as he wishes. Ifa captain after being refused a clearance to a Lake Erie port, should gail out of port without any clearance at allit is very likely that the treasury department would over-rule any fine imposed. Lake and Naval Measures Before' Congress. Special Correspondence to the MARINE REVIEW. WaAsHINGTON, D. C., June 2.--An unusual large number of bills relative to naval matters have been introduced in the present session of Congress. Many weaknesses in our naval organization have made themseves apparent since we began building war vessels of modern type and design. It can be said also that more legislation has thus far come up in Congress touching the nayi- gation interests of the great lakes than has characterized the proceedings of any previous Congress. As a matter of fact, the real importance of these great lake interests is only just beginning to dawn upon the minds of national legislators, and probably nothing has brought this about so much as the world's fair at Chicago and the matter of lake defense against Canada. The eyes of the legislators have been turned in a westerly direction and naturally enough the important interests of the lakes have caught their attention. The most important naval bill now before Congress is the one authorizing the transfer of the revenue marine service from the treasury department to the © navy department,which proposition has attracted wide-spread interest on ac- count of the earnest support given the bill by Secretary Tracy. In this fight there are a number of peculiar aspects. Secretary Tracy is opposed by Secretary Foster. Naval officers to a man stand in opposition to the head of the navy department and side with Secretary Foster. Officers of the revenue marine are fighting Secretary Foster and side with Secretary Tracy. The same reason that prompts Secretary Tracy to favor the measure induces Secretary Foster to oppose, and the reasons that command the support of the officers of the rev- enue marine in its favor call forth the opposition in naval circles. Naval of- ficers say it will place officers in the revenue marine service at the very start to a position in the navy if the transfer is made, that it has taken naval officers years to attain and will further give revenue marine officers preference in promotions. For that reason nayal officers oppose it and revenue marine _ officers favor it. Secretary Tracy sees in the transfer an augumentation of the force of naval ships and for this and other minor reasons he favors it, while Secretary Foster sees in the transfer a lessening of his power and he opposes it for this and this and other reasons. An Argument on the Canal Toll Question. Special Correspondence to the MARINE REVIEW. Kineston, Ont., June 2.--The discussion with regard to the proposed re- taliation by the United States government in connection with the canal tolls re- bate is still in progress. A prominent and new argument used is this: The de- velopment of the whaleback and other types of cheap freight boats puts another power into the hands of Canadians to be used in negotiating with the United States. It is becoming evident that the grain crop of the future reaped from the great praries of the west and northwest, both Canadian and American,must be marketed in modern freight carriers, which can, with the completion of the canals, be loaded at Chicago, Duluth and Port Arthur and taken without reshipment to the wharves of Liverpool and London. 'This will, when the canals are finished, be made the cheapest method of handling the western wheat yield, and railroads which must drop their cargoes at the Atlantic bor- der will be out of the competition. Now, this trade will have but one effective route to the ocean and that is via the great lakes and the St. Lawrence river. We can duplicate the American canals and have an all Candian route from Port Arthur to the ocean, but the Americans cannot duplicate the river below the point at which the international boundary takes to the south shore, Can- ada his this highway of commerce entirely in her own hands. During the past two weeks there has been a rush for coal carrying vessels, dealers being desirous of getting their supplies in before June 1. The rate went up 10 cents per ton. By the way, it looks as if Ontario will soon cease im- porting coal from the states. There are millions of acres of peat, which through a certain process can be converted into fuel, a ton of which will go as far as a ton of hard coal, and it is claimed that it can be marketed for $3.50 per ton. The supply in this province is simply inexhaustible. The local government has the matter in hand and every effort will be made to have the peat take the place of coal. The inventor of the purifying process is J. Dick- son, and he values the invention at $250,000. The Donnelly Wrecking Company examined the sunken steamer Rothesay and found that all her chains, brasses, etc., had been stolen. The raising of her was therefore postponed indefinitely. So far this year the grain receipts are much in excess of last year and not once has the rush ceased. Frequently six to eight vessels arrived in a day, demonstrating the fact that if Kingston wishes to retain the transhipping busi- ness an elevator will have to be erected without delay. Chicago's Drainage Canal. Epitor MARINE Review:--I desire to call the attention of vessel men, through your paper, to the proposed drainage canal at Chicago. This canal is to extend from some point on the Chicago river to a point on the Illinois river about 16 miles distant. It will be 160 feet wide and 16 feet deep, and the flow is to be 600,000 cubic feet per minute. The object of this canal is to turn the current of the Chicago river so that it will not flow into Lake Michigan, but away from it, thereby carrying the sewage inland. The canal is for ganitary pur- poses only. Can we afford to have two outlets to the lakes? This proposed canal is quite a large river without locks or gates to stop its flow. What effect will it have upon the lakes, draining 600,000 cubie feet away from them every minute? I think the ship owners, as well as the general government should look into this matter. Hier Water. Derroir, May 26, 1891. kes Send (3) cents to the MARINE | EVIE W RE TE { ra b 1 | | 1 W ill WEY V) W O {Agi gies > 3 uM ED -- Pere ee ay 3 st 2 an "iG in ae - a