A YEAR'S LIFE-BOAT WORK.

THE Report of the Royal National Life-boat Institu- tion for 189/ is such pleasant reading that it might well have exceeded the length which has been deemed sufficient to set forth the life.boat history of the year. The story is one of efficiency and steady progress, and though the year 1E94 was not, until the last months, marked by great storms. 637 persons were saved by the boats, making a total since the foundation of the Institution of 3'3,633 lives rescued. Very important advances have been made daring the year by

the construction of steam life-boats, in the establishment of electrical communication between light-ships and lighthouses

and the life-boat stations, and in removing from shoals and sand-banks the ancient wrecks which have been one of the greatest dangers to life-boat crews engaged in the work of rescue. This activity is the more satisfactory because the year has seen no great disaster from preventable causes, such as have from time to time shocked the public into demanding fresh means for saving life at sea.

Such calamities as the wreck of the Adventure,' of New- castle, off South Shields, when the whole crew perished under the eyes of twenty thousand spectators, who could do nothing to save them, often marked the beginning of fresh eras in life-boat construction. Now the work of the Society develops normally, without the spur of preventable accident, though the wrecks on the Wolf Sand at the mouth of the Thames two years ago have had their effect on a branch of life- saving machinery not under the control of the Life-boat

Institution. Electrical communication on the coast has been steadily improved by the Government, and the officials of the

Post-Office have taken up the work very warmly. Several rock lighthouses and light-ships have been connected with the shore, and it is hoped that the system will be completed before the end of the present year, a result which—from the point of view of the Life-boat Institution—will form "one of the most valuable national works of the generation." If the Council of the Institution desired to justify their estimate of the place of this measure in the scale of national effort, they might turn back to a page in the past history of wrecks, which has never been forgotten in the history of baffled life-boat endeavour. A ship was seen off Deal beach, on New Year's Eve, in almost a blaze of light, burning tar-barrels and rockets in sign of the utmost distress. An intervening fog prevented the light-ship from passing on the signals to Ramsgate ; but the Deal boat- men saw the wreck, and as it was impossible to launch their common boats in the gale, "put their halfpence together to pay for a telegraph-message—that was in the days when telegraphing was expensive—and also sent a runner to Rams- gate." But the telegram was probably obscurely worded and was misunderstood; there was delay and a request for par- ticulars, and when these were sent, and the tug and life-boat were despatched from Ramsgate, they reached the wreck only in time to see her roll over, and hear the drowning shriek of twenty-eight men of her crew. A boat's crew who were picked up, said that the vessel had a Deal pilot, who was so certain that his comrades on shore would send the life-boat from Ramsgate to their rescue, that he dissuaded the greater part of the crew from taking to the boats, and watched from the mast the lights in the windows of his own home, as he waited, in perplexity and at last in despair, for the aid that never came.

The anecdote given above strengthens the recommendation of the Life-boat Institution that it is absolutely necessary that explicit instructions should be given to the Coastguard as to the uses of the telephones and telegraphic wires as con- nected with the life-boat service. The common use of elec- tricity in connection with torpedo work and gunnery now makes seamen apt scholars at technical instruction, and thus little difficulty need be expected in carrying out such a suggestion.

Another improvement has been effected by the Trinity House, which needs a word of explanation. A number of old wrecks have been removed "in non-navigable waters," which were dangerous to the crews of lifeboats when engaged in the work of rescue. Why there should be wrecks in non- navigable waters, or what the life-boats should be doing in such places, does not seem, at first, to be obvious. These wrecks are, however, the greatest danger which the life-boat men encounter. They are the skeletons and masts of ships, often iron vessels of enormous strength, which have got out of their course, and been wrecked along the edge of the Godwin Sands, on the sunken shoals at Thames Mouth, on Yarmouth Sands, or in the Bristol Channel. In such places the red spots on the "wreck charts" cluster like swarms of bees. A wreck in navigable waters is at once blown up or removed. But these are frames of ships which have strayed from the path, and form no danger to ordinary navigation. Where one wreck drifts another follows, and these stark skeletons are very death-traps to the life-boat crews, who have to chance being dashed on them when on the way to the anew wreck.

To suggest a State-maintained life-boat service as an alternative to that at present provided spontaneously by public generosity, is within the rights of any one who is himself convinced of the wisdom of such a step, though some objections recently urged to the management of the Life-boat Institution have been needlessly ungracious. But we confess. to a feeling ofimpatience with those who occasionally feel it their duty to disparage the courage of life-boat crews, when they from time to time demur to face death exactly at the time and in the manner which their critics would dic- tate. Courage, as Aristotle says, is in some cases due to knowledge ; but it may safely be assumed that in nineteen cases out of twenty, the courage of the critic, supposing- him willing to take the boatman's place, is due to igno- rance. The ways of the tide and storm are matters almost of intuition to the local men who man the boat..

They know that a delay of half an hour, or a shift of wind, may make the difference between rescue or no rescue, between chancing death for the possible, or drowning for the look of the thing. In all such cases it is the coxswain with whom the ultimate decision rests,—a man chosen for his experience.. But granted he feels himself competent to say " Yes " or

" No " on the merits of the case, he has a decision to make in- face of the conflict of duties, for which no experience can ever- provide an answer. Referring to the great storm of December

22nd and 23rd, 1894, in which forty-four boats were launched, and ninety-nine lives saved, the report says,—" Many occasions- therefore presented themselves, calling for gallant effort on the part of the life-boats' crews, who on no occasion were found wanting when the call for duty came." But supposing, as- of ten happens, the men's wives are down on the beach, im- ploring them to stay, and to remember, as they have every cause to do, that they owe it to them to preserve their lives,. no less than to those in the wreck to risk their lives ? That- question must constantly arise, and though it is clear that "duty calls," there must be times when it is difficult to decide- which duty calls loudest.

The present management of the Life-boat Institution cites as evidence of its competence the action of the Mersey Harbour Board, who have transferred to the Institution the whole of the life-boat service protecting the mouth of the- Mersey and its estuaries. The financial support rendered by

inland communities out of touch with actual experience-

of the direct appeal made by seeing the work done by the boats, gives even stronger support to their claims to public- confidence. "Life-boat Saturday" yielded a sum of more- than £9,000 beyond that subscribed in the previous year, and- this was largely due to the generosity of the Midland towns.

There the appeal was hugely popular. It was a form of "ship-money" which was ungrudgingly contributed. The

life-boats and their crews were taken there by train, and drawn in procession through the streets. The crowds improvised collections in bronze, and the boats became huge- collecting boxes, into which a rain of "coppers" was thrown by working men. The crews declared that the " escape- valves " must be opened in the bottom before they launched their boats on the canal, or, as at Nottingham, on the- river, where the final exhibition was to take place. Good citizens, men and women, who had been waiting for years to make up their minds to "give something to some- thing," saw their opportunity. Their contributions came- later, but were not lighter in sterling worth. The total sub- scriptions and donations to the fund for 1894 were 273,961, passing that of the previous year by no less than £17,287.

The good of such a work is double. It is not every one who, like Sir William Hillary, can not only give his means„, but also take a personal share in rescuing three hundred lives from wrecked ships. But it is a form of benevolence which makes a strong appeal to the feelings of English men and women. The reply to it is spontaneous and creditable to the best instincts of the people, and if converted into a State burden, it would lose in grace, and could scarcely be more efficient.