Business: New Gangplank

Most glorious chapter of U. S. shipping history was the one written by the clipperships, fleetest commercial vessels ever whipped over the seas by the winds. Homeport for the majority of clippers was Baltimore. Last week as a late afternoon sun was sending its slanting rays over Chesapeake Bay a steam vessel cast off from a new Baltimore pier, nosed into midchannel. After stopping at Norfolk she cleared for Havre and Hamburg. Official civic celebration marked the sailing for she was City of Baltimore, first transatlantic passenger ship to be documented out of Baltimore since the clippers, first sailing of the new Baltimore Mail Steamship Co. formed last year by interests including Baltimore Trust, Pennsylvania RR., Roosevelt Steamship Co. On Oct. 15 the line will begin a weekly transatlantic freight-passenger-mail service.