DURING the month of December last, the most successful and continuous services to the shipwrecked that had ever been recorded in the course of one month were performed by the Life-boats of the NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION.

To describe them in detail would oc- cupy so much space that we can only present a summary of them; yet would it be ungrateful to the brave men who have so nobly furthered the humane ob- ject of the Institution, and upheld the honour and credit of their country, "were we to let them pass without a remark.

It would, perhaps, be invidious to select any special cases in preference to others, where all have done so well. There have been, however, amongst them services of the grandest character.

In one case a boat has hardly landed with her living freight from the very jaws of death, when she is summoned again to launch, her crew yieing with each other once more to face the storm and the crushing surf, whilst others are as eager to displace them and share their glorious work.

In other cases the brave fellows, in their anxiety that valuable time should not be lost, often seize their life-belts, rush into their boat, some insufficiently clad, and after several hours of exposure to the cold, alternately drenched by salt water and by fresh, and without food or drink, land in an equal or greater state of ex- haustion than the rescued men they have brought safe to land.

Others have gone forth in the dark night, when the danger and difficulty of the work before them are doubled, nay, often quadrupled, in reply to the distant rocket or booming gun from the lightship near the outlying banks which flank our shore, and, although in most cases successful, yet having the mortification at times to find, on arrival at the spot, that vessel and crew had been swallowed up together, and that their long hours of risk and exposure had been in vain.

Such deeds, however, can be but weak- ened by any attempts to describe them; we therefore leave the following noble list of one month's work of our boats and men to tell its own tale..