The competition between these two great lines of steam-ships excited extraordinary public interest at the time on both sides of the Atlantic, and indeed in all parts of the world; numerous records were kept for twelve months of the length of the respective voyages of the ships of the contending companies, and large sums of money were expended in bets on the result of each passage. Dividing the year into two parts it appears that the average length of passage from Liverpool to New York of the Collins steamers during the last half of 1851 was eleven days eighteen hours, while the average time of the Cunard boats was eleven days, twenty-three hours, thirty minutes; but, in the last quarter of that year, they were respectively, on the return passages from New York to Liverpool, ten days, twenty-three hours, and ten days, thirteen hours, seventeen minutes. [Sidenote: Results of it.] During the first half of 1852, the Collins line made the passage from Liverpool to New York, on an average of eleven days, twenty-two hours, and the Cunard Company on an average of twelve days, thirteen hours, and fifty-two minutes, while the return passages to Liverpool were respectively eleven days, one hour, and ten days, twenty-one hours, forty-four minutes, showing, on the whole, an average gain each passage of fourteen hours, twenty-three minutes, in favour of the Collins line.[205] It must, however, be mentioned that the Cunard line had only two of their new, or best boats engaged in the race, and that had their old boats, the _Canada_, _Niagara_, and _Europa_, been equal in speed to the _Asia_[206] and _Africa_, the gain of the Collins line would have been reduced to nine hours and ten minutes each passage. Still, in that great ocean race, the Americans were triumphant, and the rejoicings which spread throughout the United States, were, to our credit, re-echoed on the shores of Great Britain, for the struggle was one which, up to that time, had involved no loss of life, and the triumph honestly gladdened the hearts of every lover of progress on both sides of the Atlantic, encouraging as it did two great nations to extend the benign influence of art and science to their legitimate object—the advancement of the human race. But though the Cunard Company were thus far behind in the contest, they were far from vanquished, and, with renewed exertions and indomitable energy, at the same time ever bearing in mind the value of human life and the stupendous responsibility they incurred in the continuation of this struggle, they, as will hereafter appear, produced steamers which surpassed their competitors in speed, and were unrivalled in the regularity and safety with which their passages were performed. It was far otherwise with the Collins Company, and the closing years of their brief career is a sad, sad story to tell. FOOTNOTES: