The recent sad accidents at Lytham and at Rhyl, by the upsetting of the life-boats stationed at these two places, are so calculated to destroy confidence in all life-boat: among those unacquainted with the exact circumstances of the case, that it becomes an imperative duty to the public, 1st, to point out the causes which led to the upsetting o: the boats ; 2ndly, to show that such causes do not exist in life-boats as at present built by the National Shipwreck Institution; and, lastly, to endeavour to derive from these dis- asters some warning in the management of all life-boats for the future.

It is undoubted that in both these cases the imprudent carrying of sail was the immediate cause of the accident. Life-boats have nothing to do with sails, and they should be forbidden in most, if not in all, cases. The Yarmouth, Lowestoft, South- wold, and Deal boatmen are so skilful in the management of their boats, that they, perhaps, form an exception; but as a general rule sails should not be allowed in a life-boat.

In making for the beach before a heavy sea, it is the common practice with boats on the coasts of Northumberland and Yorkshire, when they see a heavy breaker following them, to hold water with their oars, or even to back the boat towards it, rather than to pull from it, as in the latter case it is most probable the boat will broach-to and get filled, and even risk being upset. Now if a boat is under sail, she cannot be backed or her way be stopped with safety; and it was in running in for the shore, under sail, that the Rhyl life-boat was thus caught by a breaker and upset.

In the present instances not only have the boats got sails, but sails more adapted for racing than for storm-sails; the boats are besides faulty in their form, faulty in their fittings, and faulty in their mode of ballasting, as we shall proceed to show. The Lytham boat is 28 feet long, 7 feet wide, 3J feet deep,, and has 25 cwt. of water ballast. The Rhyl boat is»26 feet long, has 7 feet (?) beam, is 3 feet deep, and has 18 cwt. of water ballast. Both boats were built by the Messrs. BEECHING, of Yarmouth, by order of the Ship-wrecked Fishermen and Mariners' Benevolent Society. As these builders gained the premium offered by the Duke of NORTHUMBERLAND for the best model of a life-boat, it has generally been supposed, and so stated in the newspapers, that these boats were built after that model. The public, however, will be surprised to learn that such is not the case; and, further, that with the exception of the Ramsgate and Boulmer boats (and they not strictly), not one of the boats built by the Messrs. BEECHING is on the lines of the model that gained the prize. This, of course, is not our affair. If Messrs. BEECHING choose to alter the proportions of their boats, and they find purchasers simple enough to take such boats off their hands without measurement or examination, they are perfectly at liberty to do so; but then they must not call their boats after the prize model, nor attach a brass plate to their boats with the words " Northumberland Prize Boat" conspicuously engraved on it.

We have had no opportunity of obtaining the lines of the Lytham and Rhyl life-boats; but we have been enabled to get those of a 29-feet boat built by Messrs. BEECHING for Newhaven; and the annexed wood-cut shows by the inner fine line the midship section of that boat, carefully taken off by Mr, JOSEPH PROWSE, draftsman of Her Majesty's Dockyard at Woolwich, at distances of only 6 inches apart instead of at 3 feet apart, as is usual. The ticked line in the same diagram represents the breadth of beam and form the boat should have had if milt after the prize model; and the outer strong line shows the form given by Mr.

PEAKE to the life-boats recently placed on ;he coast of Northumberland, at Newbiggin, and North Sunderland; and others built for Bude, Whitehaven, &c,, by Messrs. FORRESTT, of Limehouse, for the Shipwreck Institution. It will be seen on inspection that the breadth of beam of the Newhaven boat sas been considerably diminished, which reduction, of course, inflences the form below he .water-line, while the deck and thwarts are retained at the same height; thus the top weights remain with a diminished form to support them. But this is not all. On inspecting the body-plans of the prize model and of the Newhaven boat, which w have had drawn on the same scale, and placed side by side, it appears that the model boat has a nearly straight side, or retains her breadth for a distance of about 12 feet, or 6 feet each side of the midship section (or, as builders term it, the dead flat), and then gradually decreases in fair proportion, thus carrying her bearing well forward and aft, which gives her the requisite stability. On the contrary, the Newhaven boat, after 6 feet, suddenly falls in both above and below, pro- ducing a very lean bow, which decreases the bearing considerably, and does away with that form so necessary to give stability. We had intended to show this contrast also in a dia- gram, but the limits of our paper will not admit of it; we have, therefore, prepared a drawing of the boats, on the scale of one inch to a foot, and deposited it in the office of the Shipwreck Institution, where any one may see it that feels interested in the question.

We have said enough to show that these boats have no claim to be called Northumberland prize boats; we therefore desist. We might enlarge upon the defects of the Lytham, the Teignmouth, and other boats, and point out that their end air-cases, instead of being water-tight, as in the'prize model, are lockers with doors in them; that the water-ballast escapes by the pump-hole every time the boat rolls, and the tank thus not being full the ballast becomes shifting ballast; and that from the want of bearing in the form of the boats, and having no valves to their delivering- tubes, the water stands 6 inches on their decks with only the gear and crew on board;—but it is not our province, and certainly not our inclination to do so. We were compelled for truth's sake to say thus much, but have no wish to bear hardly upon the Messrs.

Beeching—quite the contrary. Their model fairly gained the prize at the competition against 270 others, and if the award were to be made again to-morrow upon the same models it must still be given to them.

They boldly grappled with the difficulties, and succeeded in producing a model which fulfilled the chief conditions required in a life-boat, and if they will be true to them- selves, and build strictly according to the lines of their model, they will build a life-boat that need not fear any weather. But they must now be convinced, as they were shown in the Northumberland Report, that even a better boat than theirs can be built. Let them then abandon their water-ballast, lower their decks, close up their end air-cases, and make them water-tight; put self-acting valves in their delivering tubes, build their boats with a straighter side, and give them a fuller form below the water-line, and they might then safely challenge all England to produce a better life-boat than they could build if they pleased.