Time is a great factor in ocean freight transportation, as well as in the passenger business. In the old days when the clipper ship was considered a perfect type of ocean travel, twenty days was a quick passage between New York and Liverpool, and when the Red Jacket made her famous trip in 13 days, 1 hour, and 25 minutes, the feat created as much excitement as the breaking of a record by an ocean greyhound does in these days of marine triumphs. The trip was made in 1854, and was an eastward one, the sailer logging 3,017 miles from Sandy Hook to Liverpool. In the following year the clipper ship Mary Whitredge ran from Baltimore to Liverpool in 13 days and 7 hours; she travelled 3,400 miles. Another remarkable trip was made by the Dreadnaught in 1860. She sighted the Irish coast in 9 days and 17 hours after leaving New York; but it took her three days longer to reach Liverpool. An instance showing the sailing quality of the old clipper ships occurred in 1864. The Adelaide, of the Williams & Guion line, while on her way down New York Bay, was passed by the steamship Sidon, of the Cunard line; but the Adelaide arrived in the Mersey before the Sidon, having made the passage in 12 days and 8 hours. The clipper ship was the ocean greyhound of the Fifties. Her lines were those of a racer, her towering masts and broad expanse of canvas gave her the benefit of every breeze. She carried only the better class of freight in addition to her passengers, and it was not until some time after steamships had become an established fact that the passengers abandoned the clippers to the freight traffic. For a time the sailing vessels held their own as freight carriers, but the improvements in steamships of recent years have robbed them of the bulk of their trade. They still hold their own for long sea voyages. There is a limit to the use of steam, and it is reached when the distance to be travelled makes the cost of coal and the space it occupies greater than the value of the cargo will warrant. Until some new motive power replaces steam, or steam is produced by the use of petroleum or other concentrated fuel, the clipper ship still has an occupation, and the hearts of all old-time skippers will be gladdened by the sight of her white wings upon the seas. In 1850 a 1,400-ton sailing vessel was considered a big ship, but some of the new British four-masted steel ships sailing between Europe and America carry from 5,000 to 6,000 tons of cargo. * * * * *