I assure you that there is not much
mystery about a ship of that sort. She is a tank. She is a tank ribbed,
joisted, stayed, but she is no greater mystery than a tank. The
_Titanic_ was a tank eight hundred feet long, fitted as an hotel, with
corridors, bed-rooms, halls, and so on (not a very mysterious arrangement
truly), and for the hazards of her existence I should think about as
strong as a Huntley and Palmer biscuit-tin. I make this comparison
because Huntley and Palmer biscuit-tins, being almost a national
institution, are probably known to all my readers. Well, about that
strong, and perhaps not quite so strong. Just look at the side of such a
tin, and then think of a 50,000 ton ship, and try to imagine what the
thickness of her plates should be to approach anywhere the relative
solidity of that biscuit-tin. In my varied and adventurous career I have
been thrilled by the sight of a Huntley and Palmer biscuit-tin kicked by
a mule sky-high, as the saying is. It came back to earth smiling, with
only a sort of dimple on one of its cheeks. A proportionately severe
blow would have burst the side of the _Titanic_ or any other "triumph of
modern naval architecture" like brown paper--I am willing to bet.
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