THE Central Committee of the Life-boat Saturday Fund and the District and Local Life-boat Saturday Committees through- out the country deserve the hearty congratulations of all friends to the Life-boat cause for the pluck and " staying power " they exhibited during the past remarkable year. Notwithstanding the calumnies and disgraceful misrepresentations which had been heaped upon them, Jubilee celebrations everywhere, and the trying ordeal of a long and searching Parliamentary inquiry—out of which their movement, as everybody knows, emerged with such Mat. They held courageously on their way, fighting against the obstacles which seemed to meet them in all directions with persistent determination and enthusiastic zeal, and we are sanguine that the new year of effort they have entered upon will fully justify the prediction we ventured to make in the number of the Life- boat Journal issued last November, that it will be "more successful than any of its predecessors." The Central Committee are now issuing their Second Annual report, which is full of hopeful anticipation and encouragement for Life-boat Saturday workers, and we are agreeably surprised to find that the falling off in the receipts in the past year is by no means so serious as might reasonably, in the exceptional circumstances, have been expected. The receipts of the movement, which in 1895 were 16,8371., when the headquarters were in Manchester, in- creased in 1896, under the able direction of the New Central Committee with their headquarters in London, to 21,9187., a large increase of nearly 30 per cent., this highly satisfactory result more than justifying the necessary transfer of the head office from the provinces to the " Metropolis of the "World." The receipts in 1897 amounted to 13.815L, but the decrease, as compared with the previous year, is fully accounted for by the very unusual circumstances to which we have previously alluded. The Central Committee have certainly been most successful in their earnest efforts to reduce the percentage on the takings, of the working expenses, for we find that while in 1895, when the headquarters were in Manchester and when there was no Central Committee, it cost 6,046Z. to obtain 16,8377., the Central Committee in London succeeded in 1896, their first year of work, in netting 21,9187., with a reduced expenditure of 5,712Z., and that in 1897, when it might have been supposed that the greater difficulty in obtaining money would have necessitated an increased outlay in working expenses, the outgoings did not exceed 4.499Z. It is satisfactory to note, moreover, that Life-boat Saturday collections were made for the first time during the past year in no less than 17 towns, and that such collections were made in all in 82 of the principal cities and towns of the United Kingdom.

The London Life-boat Saturday Committee state in their Second Annual Report, recently issued, that the difficulties they experienced in 1897 were identical with those met with by the Central Committee: that Londoners seemed to have spent all their spare money on special Jubilee collections or in the joyous and useful celebrations of the "record year." After analysing the accounts, we are sorry to find that the amount of money collected by the Ladies' Auxiliary in London in 1897 was considerably behind the sum it collected in 1896.

We trust, however, that the ladies, who always take a keen interest in "poor Jack/' will not be discouraged, but that they will renew their efforts with increased enthusiasm, and secure in the new year's campaign a much greater measure of success.