The first Atlantic company to build all its steamers of iron was the Inman Line, which had been founded in 1850, and until 1892 was one of the foremost competitors for the coveted “blue ribbon” of the Atlantic. Their first ships had been the _City of Glasgow_ and the _City of Manchester_, and these, inasmuch as they were built of iron, and were propelled by a screw at a time when prejudice had not yet died down, were entirely different from the prevailing type of steamer; and this, it should be remembered, at a period six years before the Cunard had built their iron _Persia_. This _City of Glasgow_ was built by a Glasgow firm of shipbuilders, and Mr. Inman had sufficient confidence in her to purchase her and form a company. Barque-rigged, with a single funnel, she was of only 1,610 tons and 350 horse-power. Under the command of Captain B. E. Matthews, who had been on the famous _Great Western_, she had already crossed from Glasgow to New York and back in 1850, and on December 11th of that year began her regular sailings between England and America. The _City of Glasgow_--all the ships of this line were named after cities--was fitted up in a manner which at that time called forth the greatest admiration. “One room,” wrote a correspondent in the _Glasgow Courier_, about that date, “is being fitted up as an apothecary’s shop, from which the surgeon will dispense his medicines.” She was provided with five water-tight bulkheads, and had a propeller whose diameter was 13 feet, with an 18 feet pitch. It was in connection with the Inman ships that the custom was inaugurated of carrying steerage passengers on the best Atlantic liners, although hitherto they had been taken across solely on board sailing ships. [Illustration: THE “CITY OF PARIS” (1866). _From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum._] [Illustration: THE “RUSSIA” (1867). _From a Painting. By Permission of the Cunard Steamship Co._]