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VOL. XXXII. CLEVELAND. O.. JULY 20; 1906. ERIE INTERESTED IN SHIP CANAL A delegation of leading financiers, manufacturers and profes- sional men from Erie visited Pittsburg last week to present the advantages of that city as the lake terminus of the Lake Erie and Ohio river ship canal. . The delegation was a joint committee representing the Erie chamber of commerce and the Erie board of trade. From the chamber of commerce were its president, A. O. Osborne; Robert J. Moorehead, president of the Personal Security & Trust Co., and Frank Wallace, president of the Second Na- tional Bank of Erie, and treasurer of the Pittsburg Coal Co. From the board of trade were ex-Judge Frank Gunnison, Attorney H. E. Fish and ex-Mayor William Hardwick, presi- dent of the Union Iron Works. ae The visitors were the guests of the Lake Erie & Ohio River Ship Canal Co. at luncheon at the Union Club. After- ward a meeting of the directors of the company was held, at which speeches setting forth the advantages of Erie were made by Messrs. Osborne, Hardwick, Gunnison and Fish. The visitors all declared that the people of Erie were greatly interested in the ship canal and would respond to any calls that might be made upon them in constructing it. They said they were aware that the route through Ohio presented some advantages from an engineering standpoint, but they felt the all-Pennsylvania route, with a terminus at Erie, had great merits which balanced those which appeared in favor of the other. E. J. Lloyd, Emil Swensson, Thomas P. Roberts, James W. Wardop, John E. Shaw and other directors of the canal com- pany replied to the questions of the visitors and gave them assurance that the route of the canal would not be selected for some months yet, and that the people of Erie should have a full opportunity of showing the advantage to be derived from making that city the lake terminus. It was pointed out that, no matter whether the canal en- tered the lake in eastern Ohio or western Pennsylvania, Erie would be greatly benefited by the construction and operation ) of the waterway. The visitors presented an invitation to the' directors and engineers of the canal company to visit Erie in September. The invitation was unanimously accepted. In conversation the members of the party declared that Erie people felt that the canal ought to be a Pennsylvania institu- tion, and that their city, with its magnificent harbor, offered an ideal terminus. If Erie were selected the most liberal subscriptions would be made to the stock of the company and there would be no difficulty in raising at least $1,000,000 for that purpose. JAPANESE | FERRY STEAMERS The Mitsu Bishi Dockyard & Engine Works at Nagasaki will soon deliver to the Sanyo Railway Co. two ferry steamers -- to run between Fusan, Korea, and Shimonoseki, Japan, in connection with the Sanyo and the Fusan-Seoul-Wiju system of Korea. The distance between the ports is 120 miles, and the steamers are expected to make the voyage in eight hours. The Iki Maru and the Tsushima Maru, as these vessels are to be called, are steel twin-screw steamers of light construc- tion, of about 1,600 tons gross, fitted with good accommoda- tions for twelve first-class passengers, sixteen second-class berth passengers, twenty-nine second-class passengers, without berths, and 238 steerage passengers. They are 260 ft. long, 36 ft. wide, 22 ft. deep, and their draught when fully loaded "15/12 dt Gin, Accommodations for passengers are provided in both Euro- pean and foreign style. The social hall, with two of the first- class staterooms, is at the forward end of the upper of the .two decks, while the dining saloon and the remaining four first-class staterooms are directly below on the main deck. The after part of the upper deck is given up to the second- class accommodations, with the steerage below on the after main deck. The after part of the upper deck is given up to the second-class accommodations, with the steerage below on the after main deck. A novelty is the installing of large trough baths, in Japanese style, for the second and third class passengers. Each ship will have a cold-storage chamber with a capacity of about 300 cubic feet, fitted up for the transpor- tation of fish. The lighting throughout will be by electricity, and all the spaces for passengers will be heated by steam. The starting of these steamers will bring the entire Japanese railroad system in close connection with the Korean system, and through that with the Manchurian and Siberian roads, when the short gap between Wiju and Liaoyang is filled, as it soon will be, so that a traveler may make the journey from Tokyo to London with scarcely twelve hours on the water. James Rees & Sons Co., Pittsburg, Pa., will build for the Arkansas River Packet Co., a new steamer to be known as the S. S. Brown, in honor of Capt. Samuel Brown, of Pitts- burg. The steamer will be 220 ft. long, 44 ft. beam and will have engines of 1,200 'H. P. The ship building plant of the Wm. R. Trigg Co., Rich- mond, Va., was sold by order of the court last week to Frank Samuel and to H. G. Lloyd, both of Philadelphia, for a total of $368,000. It is understood that the nurchase was made for the bondholders.