THE year of grace 1902 has come and gone, but in reviewing it we have to acknowledge that it has not been an altogether exhilarating and encouraging one for charity workers generally, and that the Life-boat Saturday Fund cannot, unfortunately, boast of having done very much better than the other "phil- anthropies" of the country. Men have worked and women have pleaded, but they have not succeeded in bringing the receipts up to " high water mark." The very fact, however, that this has been the case calls for unstinted praise for all the earnest labourers for the Life- boat cause, for it means that every shilling raised has incurred the expendi- ture of an unusual amount of energy and zeal, and too much cannot be said there- fore by way of recognition and approval of the self-denying efforts of the Life- boat Saturday workers of every descrip- tion throughout England, Scotland and Ireland. We would remind them—and their own experience will confirm the statement—that the special circum- stances of the year have been altogether exceptional, and that quite apart from other important reasons which might well be adduced, the British Public has had to combat with the after results of the South African War, including an increased income tax and a general rise in the cost of most of the necessaries of life. These several matters have seriously affected all classes of the com- munity, either directly or indirectly, so that after meeting all compulsory pay- ments, the family bread-winner has found that perforce he has been regretfully obliged to reduce his charity contributions. So much for the past.

A new year has now been entered upon, and hope, which we are told " springs eternal in the human breast," leads us to look forward with san- guine expectation to the results of another season's effort. We would im- press on all Life-boat Saturday workers the undoubted fact that comparativelack of success owing to special and well-recognised circumstances in the past is no criterion whatever as to the future when those circumstances have been either removed or overcome, and therefore urge them to work on en- thusiastically and confidently, resting assured that, whatever the result— whether it be, as we may hope, excep- tionally good or merely indifferent — they will, in addition to earning the grateful thanks of the ROYAL NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION, have the more important satisfaction of knowing that they have done what in them lay to discharge an un- doubterl duty to those "in peril on the sea.".