FOURTEEN years since a movement com- menced of an altogether novel character in the life-boat work, and which is without precedent in this or in any other country.

At that period a benevolent lady presented the NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION with the cost of a new life-boat, to be stationed at a part of the coast where one was needed.

Another life-boat soon followed from a gentleman. A third was presented by a Yacht Club; and a fourth was given by a lady, as a thankoffering after a providential preservation from drowning. Rapidly the generous spark was fanned into a flame, and new boats, as fast as they were required on the various coasts of the United King- dom, were presented to the Society.

Many of these noble gifts assumed the shape of memorials to departed relatives or friends, the first of which was given by two surviving sisters, in memory of a third to whom they had bid a last farewell, and which boat bears the affecting and affec- tionate name of The Sisters' Memorial. Next came inland towns—Ipswich being the first —some of the inhabitants of which, feeling a desire that their own communities should be represented on the coast as performing their share of the national duty of affording protection to shipwrecked persons, in the only manner in which they could do so, appealed to their fellow-townsmen, and soon many of such inland places were represented by their own boats. Our chief manufactur- ing towns and cities being conspicuous amongst the number.

Again, various public bodies of men, such as the great Mutual Benefit Societies, the Civil Service, the Universities, Yacht Clubs, Commercial Travellers, Sunday Schools, and the subscribers to Public Journals, the Society of Friends, &c.; and lastly, standing by itself in kind, the noble gift of 2,0001. for the provision and endow- ment of a Life-boat Station, by a firm of Parsee Merchants, Messrs. CAMA and Co., on retiring from business in London, as an acknowledgment of, or thankoffering for their success, and in testimony of their appreciation of the kind reception they had uniformly met with from the inhabitants of London.

In this manner it has come to pass that, as a great and enduring monument of the benevolent feeling and voluntary duty, if we may use the term, of the people of this country, the grand fleet of splendid and perfectly-equipped Life-boats which belongs to the Life-boat Institution now encircles our coasts. That fleet, at the present time, consists of no less than 220 boats; and of that large number 212 have been special gifts, or, as in the case of a very few of them, have been adopted by payment of their existing value.

Through the means of this splendid sup- port, and more than generous appreciation of the usefulness of the Institution, and of the labours of its managing body, the Com- mittee who conduct its affairs are now in that proud position that they can look on ;he work they had set themselves to do as complete, so far as the placing life-boats at all or nearly all suitable and available posi- tions on the coasts of the United Kingdom is concerned ; and can feel that it will only, or at least chiefly, now devolve on them to maintain their existing Life-boat Establish- ments in a state of completeness and effi- ciency. To enable them to do which, how- ever, they will still — considering that the NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION is solely dependent on voluntary support— continually need the encouraging sympathy and interest, and the generous pecuniary aid of their fellow-countrymen, who have so generously supported them during the past.