WHEN the character of the services performed by the life-boats, and the dangers and diffi- culties which they have to encounter, are taken into consideration, it is rather matter for astonishment that they do not frequently fail in effecting their object, than that occa- sionally the utmost exertions of their brave crews are frustrated by the overwhelming force of the winds and waves.

Nevertheless, if it happens that a vessel is wrecked in the neighbourhood of a life- boat station, or within many miles of it, and those on board her perish, there are sure to be some persons, unacquainted with the subject, who at once raise an outcry, and demand loudly why they were not saved; sometimes even proclaiming the life-boat men to be cowards, or their boat to be use- less; yet nothing can be more inconsist- ent and inconsiderate. It is inconsistent, because even in undertakings of much less uncertainty and difficulty success is never sure; and inconsiderate, because such reflec- tions must be most painful, and most dis- couraging to the life-boats' crews, who may have done all that it was possible for them to do.

We are led to make these remarks from the circumstance of two or three such cases having occurred during the past year, and from our knowing that the off-hand criticisms of persons unqualified to form a correct opinion have done much harm. In justice, then, to the men who work our life-saving fleet, and in justice to the boats composing it, we think it right to call the attention of such persons and others to some of the causes of failure, and which we feel sure will convince any /air-minded persons that they should not be too precipitate to blame either boat or men from the mere fact of want of success; or to stigmatize the latter for de- clining to embark on a service which their own judgment may tell them is impracticable or fraught with greater danger than they can be reasonably expected to encounter.

In the first place, as regards the boats.

What is a life-boat ? What can it do, and what is it incapable of doing ? A life-boat is simply an insubmergible boat, which cannot founder under any circumstances.

It is not, however, endoived with super- natural properties. It may be driven back by the force of the wind and sea, or be up- set by an overpowering wave; and although most modern life-boats are provided with the property of self-righting when upset, yet that advantage can only be obtained by a sacrifice of propelling power, since such boats have not space for so many rowers as other boats. If steam-power could be ap- plied to life-boats, they might possibly be propelled against any sea and wind; as yet, however, the strength of 10 or 12 men is all the force that is available, and it is not an uncommon thing for a life-boat to be hurled back 60 or 70, or even 100 yards, by a single breaking wave, in spite of the utmost efforts of a powerful crew to stem it, while there are undoubtedly seas in some localities with which no life-boat could contend.

Again, the oars of a life-boat are some- times broken by the sea, and the boat herself is thus rendered temporarily unmanageable, when the risk of her upsetting is much in- creased, as she cannot then be kept head to the seas; and when life-boats are stationed on iron-bound coasts, where, in the event of their getting disabled by loss of oars or other cause, rocks are everywhere under their lee, the danger of destruction to boat and crew is of course much increased.

It may also be fairly held that darkness much augments the danger of the life-boat service; a fact that has always been recog- nized by the NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTI- TUTION, which pays its life-boats' crews for night service double the amount which they would receive in the day time.

Now, we are far from implying that life- boat men should be deterred by such dangers as we have above briefly related. We all give them credit for courage, for physical endurance, and for humane feelings; and they would not be entitled to that credit if they shrunk from encountering risk when there might be any prospect of success.

That they have not done so in times past has been proved by the vast number of lives which they have saved, and by the life-boats that have upset from tune to time; and we may feel quite sure that our English, Scotch, and Irish boatmen will not hesitate to risk their lives in behalf of drowning men in all time to come.

We must not, however, forget that they have duties both to themselves and to others besides shipwrecked men; that they have wives and children at home who have a prior claim on them; and that a man may not recklessly throw away his own life, which his Maker has bestowed on him for his own happiness and the general good, even if he has no others dependent on him for support.

We claim, then, for our life-boat men, as volunteering, without any previous bind- ing engagement, to perform a difficult and dangerous work — a work, moreover, re- quiring often great professional skill in its performance—that they must be allowed to be their own judges as to the possibility or probability of its successful accomplishment; whilst as regards the coxswains in charge of the several life-boats, we consider it to be their duty at all times to remember that the lives of their crews are in their hands; that those lives are of as great value as the lives of the shipwrecked persons ; and that, more- over, we are deliberately subjecting them to serious risk, whilst those whom we invite them to succour have been involuntarily placed in danger, and that therefore the British public is responsible for'the life of every life-boat volunteer who thus perishes in its service.

We would, then, urge every volunteer censor of a life-boat or a life-boat's crew, in the first place, to make quite sure that he is a competent judge, which, as a general rule, he is not very likely to be: in the second place, to be certain that, being compe- tent to judge, and knowing the extent of the difficulty and danger, he would have been ready to incur the same himself: and, in the third place, to remember that it is as optional to the coast boatman to under- take or to decline the danger of the life-boat service, without a neglect of duty, as it is to any other member of the community to do the same.

Finally, we think it matter for congratu- lation and thankfulness that the failures of life-boats and their crews have been so unfre- quent that the opportunity has rarely offered for excitable or mistaken persons to commit the indiscretion which we have above noticed; whilst their invaluable services in the cause of humanity are now such an " oft-told tale " that they are almost liable to be under-esti- mated from their-constant repetition.