SHORTER NOTICES.
BRITAIN'S LIFE-BOATS : The Story of a Century of Heroic Service. By Major A. J. Dawson. With an intro- duction by the Prince of Wales. (Hodder and Stoughton. 7s. 6d. net.) As the Prince of Wales says in his introductory letter, this record of the Royal National Life-Boat Institution, which will celebrate its centenary next March, will be read with interest and pride. Always a voluntary service, it is extremely efficient, and it has saved many thousands of lives. Major Dawson tells the story simply and clearly, and gives abundant detail, with many illustrations and a good map. The first lifeboat was built in 1789 at South Shields by a boat-builder named Greathead, from a design modelled on a Norway yawl and embodying also the ideas of a local inventor named Wouldhave. The national society, incorporating several earlier local societies, was founded by Sir William Hillary, an English baronet, who lost his fortune and had to retire to the Isle of Man. Douglas Bay was then notorious as the scene of many wrecks, and Hillary, after taking part in attempts to rescue the castaways during a peculiarly bad season, published in 1823 an " Appeal to the British Nation " for the establishment of a National Life-Boat Institution. The appeal brought an immediate response. Major Dawson describes the new motor lifeboats and the tractors which haul the boats to the sea and launch them. But the success of the work still depends upon the lifeboat men.
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