The conditions attending the loss of the _Titanic_ were so heartrending, and its appeal has been so world-wide, as to lead us to expect that the tragedy will be preëminently fruitful in those reforms which, as we have shown, usually follow a disaster of this magnitude. Had the ship been less notable and the toll of human life less terrible, the disaster might have failed to awaken that sense of distrust in present methods which is at the root of all thorough-going reform. The measure of the one compensation which can be recovered from this awful loss of life and treasure, will depend upon the care with which its lessons are learned and the fidelity with which they are carried out. Unquestionably, public faith in the security of ocean travel has been rudely shaken. The defects, however, which are directly answerable for the sinking of this ship are fortunately of such a character that they can be easily corrected; and if certain necessary and really very simple changes in construction are made (and they can be made without any burdensome increase in the cost) we do not hesitate to say that future passenger travel on a first-class ocean-going steamship will be rendered absolutely safe. [Illustration: Small dial indicates whether signals come from port or starboard. RECEIVING SUBMARINE SIGNALS ON THE BRIDGE] The duty of a passenger steamer, such as the _Titanic_, may be regarded as threefold: She must stay afloat; she must provide a comfortable home for a small townful of people; and she must carry them to their destination with as much speed as is compatible with safety and comfort. Evidently the first condition, as to safety, should be paramount. When it has been determined to build a ship of a certain size and weight (in the case of the _Titanic_ the weight was 60,000 tons, loaded) the designer should be permitted to appropriate to the safety elements of her construction every pound of steel that he may wish to employ. In a vessel like the _Titanic_, which is to be entrusted with the care of three or four thousand souls, he should be permitted to double-skin the ship, and divide and subdivide the hull with bulkheads, until he is satisfied that the vessel is unsinkable by any of the ordinary accidents of the sea. When these demands have been met, he may pile deck upon deck and crowd as big a boiler- and engine-plant into this unsinkable hull as the balance of the weights at his disposal will allow.