This Company now maintain a weekly service, leaving Liverpool every Wednesday and New York every Saturday; and a fortnightly service from London to New York _viâ_ Havre. Following the example of the Cunard Company, the commanders of the ships are required to navigate at certain seasons within fixed limits of latitude, and to furnish a chart to the Company with the lines of their course during each voyage laid down upon it. Stringent regulations are also issued and enforced, and, to the credit of the Company, they have not during their existence, lost a single passenger through negligence or any accident of the sea. [Sidenote: Old Black Ball line.] It is a curious fact that, as a rule, the owners of the principal American clipper lines of sailing-ships were among the last to see that their vessels, however splendid, were being daily eclipsed by the screw steamers of Great Britain. Thus, conspicuous among the lines which bravely contended against the new motive power, and long maintained itself in full force, may be mentioned the Old Black Ball line, which, when I remember it, a quarter of a century ago, possessed upwards of twenty of the finest sailing-packets I ever saw. They were grand ships of their class, and admirably fitted for the trade in which they were engaged, carrying, during some of the later years of their career, a thousand passengers every week, during the summer months, from our shores to the United States. But even the _Black Ball_ was at last obliged to give in, having previously merged into or formed part of the Guion line of sailing-ships, which in their day were equally celebrated for the regularity of their passages.[250] [Sidenote: The Guion line. 1863.] In 1863, however, Mr. S. B. Guion, the chief owner of the line bearing his name, finding it no longer possible to contend against the screws, though evidently still doubtful of their permanent success, entered into an arrangement to supply, through his old connections and agents in America, the Cunard and National Companies, with emigrants and cargo for their steamers; but in 1866, he and his co-partners, most of whom are citizens of the United States, started a steamship of their own. In August of that year, their _Manhattan_, built in this country of iron and fitted with the screw, to their orders, sailed from Liverpool for New York, being the pioneer of their new fleet of liners. The _Minnesota_, _Nebraska_, _Colorado_, _Idaho_, _Nevada_, _Wisconsin_, and _Wyoming_, vessels each of about 3000 tons, and built of iron, specially for this trade, followed in rapid succession. In 1873, they added the _Montana_, another fine vessel of 3500 tons, to their fleet, which, in 1874, was further increased by the addition of the _Dakota_, and two similar vessels, so that the Liverpool and Great Western Steam-ship Company, better known as the Guion line, already possesses a fleet of very fine steam-ships.[251]