3-070-649 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Departure of a Cunard steamer from Liverpool: passengers arriving at the landing-stage, 1881. 'Our Illustrations of the scenes attending the ordinary embarkation of passengers at Liverpool for a voyage by the weekly Cunard steamer to Halifax, Boston, or New York will at once be recognised by those of our readers who have any acquaintance with the aspects of similar traffic at a great port of ocean steam navigation, as representing in a truthful and lively manner the sort of bustle there witnessed upon every similar occasion. The cabs and other vehicles, with anxious people inside, and with piles of luggage on the roof, continually drive up to the entrance of the landing-stage on the Mersey quay...[The Cunard company] has owned nearly a hundred and fifty ships; its fleet at one time being usually composed of about fifty, including those employed in the Atlantic Mail service, those of the Havre and Mediterranean service, and others plying between Halifax and Bermuda, and between several British and Irish ports. Its entire floating property may perhaps be valued at something like nine or ten millions sterling'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.