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The ‘Good Old’ Days Rummaging through some old books, I came across ‘Rhodes Steamship Guide And Holidays Afloat’. Published in 1889, and subtitled ‘A Complete Handbook Of Coasting Trips & Ocean Voyages’, this little pocket book gives a fascinating insight into life at sea at that time. Giving advice on clothing, Rhodes says that, ‘Flannel underclothing is always best; in hot climates it is well to even sleep in flannel.’ I’m not so sure about that advice in the days when cotton clothes were readily available and surely much lighter than flannel. Boots that required blacking were considered ‘intolerable’ on board ship because the blacking got everywhere. Rhodes gives sensible advice when he recommends that plain tanned leather or canvas boots are are best, with ‘india-rubber soles to keep the wearer from slipping on the wet decks’. It seems that ships at that time didn’t launder passengers’ ‘linen’, though I guess a crew member could always be found to wash clothes for a small fee. So Rhodes comments that most passengers take with them a sufficient supply of clean linen to last the voyage, ‘with a rough canvas bag to receive what is soiled and not thrust out of the port-hole ...’ Not thrust out of the port-hole? Surely not? Is it possible that the seabed of the steamship routes to India and beyond is littered with the cast-off knickers of our Victorian forbears? One sensible suggestion was to purchase what is described as a ‘sort of ‘hold-all’’ which was a series of pockets attached to a canvas backing which when unrolled could be fixed to the cabin bulkhead. In these pockets could be placed ‘hair brushes, field glasses, tooth powder, a pack of cards, handkerchiefs, and other personal knick-knacks in daily use.’ ‘The old traveller will put the various ingredients of comfort into his bags before he leaves his house; and thus on board it will take him but two seconds to hang up that which makes him thoroughly unpacked at once.’ What a good idea! The handbook reminds us that long-distance travellers carried an astonishing arrange of medications with them along with, one supposes, either the expertise or a handbook on how to use them. Among others, Rhodes recommends: antipyrin (a derivative of coal-tar) or cocaine for seasickness, cascara sagrada (a laxative), hunyadi water, soda-mint tablets and Henry’s magnesia for acid stomach, flatulence, nausea and dyspepsia, pepsin or willow charcoal tablets for indigestion, castor oil or laudanum for diarrhoea, dysentery and colic (those liable to diarrhoea are also recommended to wear a ‘flannel belt day and night’), quinine for a fever, eucalyptus for an embrocation, chlorate of potash for inactive kidneys, collodion to paint over cuts, paregoric, cod liver oil and ammonium chloride for coughs, Pike’s Toothache Drops for toothache, hazeline for an eye-wash, antipyrin or opium (laudanum) for headaches and pain relief ... It’s a wonder that the early travellers didn’t die of overdoses from the things contained in their medicine-chests! Despite the drugs held in their medicine-chests, passengers did fall seriously ill from time to time but steamship companies reminded the potentially sick man that they were obliged only to ‘convey him to his original destination’. Companies reserved the right to ‘put any passenger ashore at the first port, on the certificate of the surgeon that such passenger is suffering from a contagious or infectious disease, or has become insane’. Though this sounds somewhat harsh, the rule almost certainly derives from the severe economic consequences of a ship being detained or even quarantined as a result of contagious or infectious disease on board. Some companies reserved the right to make an additional charge for the passengers’ board during this time; in one instance said to be ‘usually ten shillings a day for first-class passengers’. Finally, you could take your ‘dogs, birds or other animals’ with you on some steamship lines - but dogs would usually be ‘handed over to the keeping of the ship’s butcher’! I’m quite certain that I wouldn’t want my two dogs to be entrusted into the care of a butcher! Visit Brian MacDonald's website at: www.brianmacdonald.info
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