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Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners' Royal Benevolent Society

THE Twenty-seventh Annual Meeting of this Institution was held on the 18th June last, at the United Service Institution, Whitehall Yard, Admiral the EARL of SHREWSBURY and TALBOT, C.B., in the unavoidable absence of the DUKE of MARLBOBOUGH, President of the Society, in the Chair.

The objects of the Society are to assist with food, money, and clothing, all sailors wrecked on our coasts, and to relieve its necessitous maritime members.

We observed amongst the Company present, General Sir EDWARD COST; Admirals BOULTRER and BUCKLE ; Captains Royal Navy, C. R. EGERTON, Hon. F. MAUDE, J. S. LEAN, ARTHUR ELLIS, Esq., R.N.; GEORGE A. BROGRAVE, Esq., V.P., ALEXANDER BOETEFEUR, Esq.; Revs. C. R. DE HAVILLAND, THOMAS RAY, and many others.

The Chairman, after some appropriate remarks in advocacy of the Christian objects of the Society, called upon the Secretary, FRANCIS LEAN, Esq., R.N., to read the Report, which stated that the blessings of the Charity had been dispensed during the past year to 5,348 shipwrecked persons, including foreigners of the following nations, viz.: Austria, America, Belgium, France, Hamburgh, Holland, Hanover, Italy, Prussia, Spain, Turkey, and the British American Colonies; also to 3,806 Widows and Orphans of Fishermen and Mariners, making a total of 148,718 persons relieved since 1839 , that last year 49,704 Mariners voluntarily marked their appreciation of the Society by each subscribing 3s. per annum; that the Income had been £17,183, including legacies and various large donors; so that notwithstanding the heavy demands on the resources of the Society the need had been met without touching on its small invested property. The wrecks and collisions at sea had become mote numerous than formerly, the crews of some of which vessels, when in their time of need and distress, called for the untiring exertions of many of the 800 gentlemen who benevolently acted as the almoners of the Society's bounty to the sufferers,when landed on any part of the coast of the United Kingdom.

The Report concluded by thanking those kindhearted persons whose bounty, under God, had been so liberally bestowed, by which «o much good had been effected; and would again remind them that, as the wants of the poor castaways are continuous, so is the need of their liberality.

The Report was unanimously adopted, and the claims of the Institution very earnestly advocated by several of the above-named speakers, and a vote of thanks to the Chairman closed the proceedings.