Cruelty on the Puget Sound: A Call to Fix the Mail Boats
Passengers describe the Tacoma-Fairhaven steamers as ‘tubs’ that are unseaworthy, unreliable, and an insult to the traveling public.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The mail boats that ply between Tacoma and Fairhaven are of a character that would please the people if something would happen to them. Yesterday, a passenger remarked that a suggestion of a funeral arrangement on board would be a failure, for the reason that the corpse might spoil. The fact is, the mail boats from Tacoma to Fairhaven should be prosecuted for cruelty to animals. Passengers suffer ineffably, and even the soberest people are more or less inclined to get drunk to help pass away the time. Seriously, the mail service is shameful, unspeakable, and an utter outrage. The boats are tubs, incapable of breasting an ordinary eddy, and only fit to be dismantled and transformed into wharf-boats. There is no reflection upon the officers, as they are employed to run them as they do, but we hope that this Mr. McGinnis, whom we have heard of so much in this neighborhood, will come with the force his name suggests and do something to superinduce more convenience for a suffering public.
“The boats which carry the mail are tubs, which are uncapable of breasting an ordinary eddy much less a current.”
Reliability and quality of public transit were as critical to Fairhaven's growth in 1890 as they are to modern Bellingham. The 'mail boat' frustration highlights the eternal challenge of connecting the Pacific Northwest's isolated waterfront communities to the broader region.
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