By GEORGE F. SHEE, M.A., Secretary of the Institution.

This present number of The Life-Boat, the 280th, is the last but one which will be published in the first century of the Institution's history. When the text appears, in February, 1924, we shall be on the threshold of our second century. March 4th will be the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Institution.

March 1st will be the seventy-first birthday of The Life-Boat. For the seventy-one years its aim has been, in the words of its first editor, " to advance the great cause we advocate, namely, the improvement of life-boats, their management, and all other means for the preservation of life from shipwreck.

I should like to quote also, the very first words of its first number : " If there be one subject more than another that might be expected to command the attention and sympathy of a maritime country like Great Britain, it surely must be the safety and welfare of those of her sons ' whose business is in the great waters,' and yet how imperfectly informed, how supinely indifferent is the great bulk of our population, as to the causes, the prevention, or the mitigation of the heroes of shipwreck.' "

Those words were written at a time when the Institution, re-organised by the vigorous efforts of the fifth Duke of Northumberland, was just beginning to recover after a period during which public apathy had allowed its revenue to fall to less than £400, and the great majority of its Life-boats to become un-seaworthy. The bitter and deserved reproach in those words has, in the intervening years, been largely removed— largely but not entirely. There still are many " imperfectly informed, and supinely indifferent." So long as there are such, and so long as the Institution fails to raise each year sufficient to maintain the Service for the year, that reproach will remain. Our hope is that, before we have gone far in our second century, it will have been entirely removed.

The Institution and Ship Owners.

In the last issue of The Life-Boat, in the article entitled " The Institution and Ship Owners," appeared a list of the launches of Life-boats to ships during the first four months of this year, together with the names of the vessels, and the owners, and the amount of the owner's subscription, if any, to the Institution.

Among these ships was the S.S. Dunmail, of Newcastle, some of whose crew in a, small boat were helped on 21st April, j the Barry Life-boat, and it was stated that the owners, Messrs. Sharp & Co., of Newcastle, were not subscribers to the Institution. While this statement is correct, I am very glad to be able to say, that since the appearance of that article, the Barry Honorary Secretary has informed me that, after this service, Messrs. Sharp sent a special contribution of five guineas to the funds of the Barry Branch, while the Captain of the Dunmail sent " a most appreciative letter " to the Coxswain and Crew of the Life-boat, and a sum of money to be distributed among them.

The article was quoted in a number of newspapers, and the Journal of Commerce, of Liverpool, one of the leading shipping papers in the Kingdom, and a paper which has always shown its readiness to put the claims of the Institution before the public, complained with some bitterness of " these attacks," suggested that " a direct personal appeal to the shipowners as a body for increased support would be the better way," and gave it as its opinion that " shipowners do, as a matter of fact, support the Life-boat Institution, as well as any other section of the community."

The Journal of Commerce also published two letters expressing surprise at the Institution's charges against ship- owners, and asking what data there were to support them, and quoted " a well-known shipowner " as saying that the Institution's Secretary " needed a good shaking.

A full reply was sent to these criticisms, but, as readers of The Life-Boot are already familiar with the facts, it need not be quoted in full here. It pointed out that " direct personal appeals " had been, and were continually being, made to shipowners. It gave figures to show that in fact, they did not " support the Institution as well as any other section of the community," and it called attention to the fact that the statements made in The Life-Boot had been supported by three pages of figures and dates. In conclusion, the " well-known shipowner," or any one else concerned, was gently invited to " shake" the Institution's facts if he could.

That letter was published by the Journal of Commerce, on 1st August. So far no attempt has been made to shake either the facts or the Secretary.

At the same time it is a pleasure to be able to record that when, at the beginning of November, the Donaghadee Life-boat performed a fine service to the 8.8. Castle Ireland, of Belfast, rescuing nine lives, the owners, Messrs. John Kelly, Ltd., presented £50 to the Crew.

Gifts from Crews.

The Life-Boat Day at Palling (Norfolk) was held early in August, and raised a sum of over £25. A launch of the Life- boat took place in connexion with the Day, which had been organised by Mr. G. 0. Cubit, who provides the horses for launching. On this occasion not only did he provide the horses without any charge, but the Crew and helpers gave their services. These two generous gifts of service were the equivalent of over £15.

In addition we have had several gifts of money from Crews. On 6th December of last year, the Spurn Life-Boat rescued the crew of five of the schooner Hosanna, of Thurso, and then put out again, and saved'the vessel also. For saving the vessel, the Life-Boat Crew were awarded salvage, and from his share of this a-ward, Coxswain Robert Cross has sent to the Institution a donation of £2 5s. Qd.

On 12th April, of this year, tie Cresswell Life-boat helped to refloat the Norwegian steamer Kamfjord, of Christiania, and on 16th April, the Lowestoft Boat helped to refloat the Dutch steam trawler Burgemeester Ripping, of Maassluis, which had also stranded. Out of the salvage awarded for these two services, the Crews have made donations of £10 and £2 respectively, to the Institution's funds.

On 19th July last the smack Hepatica, of Lowestoft, went aground on the Hasborough Sands, and was got afloat again with the help of the Cromer Motor Life-boat. Out of the salvage awarded them for this service the crew tiave presented £1 16s. 4d. to the Institution.

* * * * I regret that in the last issue of The Life-Boat the gift which the Claeton-oB-* Sea Crew made to the Institution, out of money received for the salvage of the barge Decima, was given as £3. It should have been £5. The date of the service was 20th January last.

* * * * On 4th August, 1922, the Porthoustock Life-boat crew saved the s.s. Dolphin, of Manchester, and her crew of eight.

The vessel had struck the Manacles Rocks during thick weather and was piloted by one of the Life-boat crew into Falmouth Harbour, accompanied by theLife-boat. Out of the salvage awarded the Life-boat Crew have sent a donation to the Institution, of £8 16s. 6d.

Practical Gratitude.

" From the calamity of shipwreck no one can say that he may at all times remain free, and whilst he is now pro- viding only for the safety of others, a day may come which will render the cause his own." Every now and then that truth is strikingly illustrated by events. Here is one such illustration.

On 27th August five friends put out from Porthdinllaen in a small boat to enjoy some fishing. They were caught in a sudden squall. One of their oars was put out of action, and they were left helpless at the mercy of heavy seas. The news of their danger was brought ashore by another boat, and the Porthdinllaen Life-boat at once put out, and rescued all on board, but she arrived only just in time, for the boat was already almost filled with water and in imminent danger of being swamped. In acknow- ledgment of this service the following letter was sent by the five rescued men to the Honorary Secretary at Porth- dinllaen :— " We, the undersigned, wish to ex- press our profound appreciation to Coxswain Owen Evans, Ms Crew, and all others who were in any way instru- mental in coming to our help in Morfa Nevin Bay. on the 27th of August. We are convinced that we owe our lives to the magnificent way in which assistance was given, and have pleasure in forward- ing herewith twenty-five pounds (£25) towards the funds of the Institution.

Again tendering our heartfelt thanks." * * * * Nor was that all. The day after the rescue one of the five called on the Institution's Organizing Secretary in Manchester to express his gratitude. He added, " Like many others, I have been ' bored stiff' by Life-boat and other flag days, but I want to take this oppor- tunity of saying that anything which I can do at any time for the Institution will be regarded as a privilege." The Rescued to the Rescue.

Here is another fine example of practical gratitude :— At 7 in the morning of 30th August the St. Abbs Life-boat was called out to the help of a vessel showing signals of distress two and a half miles to the north-east. A gale was blowing, with a heavy sea and driving rain. At first the vessel could not be found, and the Life- boat returned to St. Abbs Head Signal Station, and learnt that she was now far to the southward, off Eyemouth.

When the Life-boat reached her she was in a sinking condition, with no sign of life on board, and ten minutes later she foundered. A life-buoy was picked up marked " East Neuk, Aberdeen," and it was afterwards learnt that her crew had been saved by the Eyemouth Life-boat.

Among the men who answered the signal of distress, and went out in the Boat, was a visitor on holiday at St.

Abbs, Captain Robert Gibson, who was in command of the s.s. Hopelyn, of Newcastle, when she was wrecked on the Scroby Sands on 19th October of last' year, and who had himself been saved, with all his crew, after that stern and heroic struggle, lasting thirty-six hours, for which the Coxswains at Gorleston and Lowestoft won their Gold Medals.

Life-boat Service Boards in Churches.

In the last issue of The Life-Boat I called attention to the fact that the Service Boards of the Life-boat Station, at Pakefield, Suffolk, which is now closed, were to be hung in the parish church, and that there would be a special service when they were unveiled.

I am very glad to see that the idea has been taken up elsewhere, and a corre- spondent of the Liverpool Daily Post and Mercury, in its issue of 24th July, writes : " The Mersey Life-boats have many fine achievements to their credit, and it might be worth considering whether one of the Wallasey churches, say St. Nicholas's, as being nearest the sea, could not in this way show honour to the Mersey Life-boat men." A Children's Life-boat Bazaar.

On several occasions, in these notes, I have written about the spontaneous help which children have given to the Institution—by collecting, by making things and selling them on its behalf,by appeals at the seaside with sand models, and so forth. But I do not think that I have ever had before the pleasure of announcing that a Children's Life-boat Bazaar had been held. It was the idea of three little girls at Bideford, and was held in September.

They collected toys, sent out invitations to tea and the bazaar, and by the sale of the toys made over 19s. The bazaar was entirely their own idea. They arranged it themselves, and only children were invited to it. From beginning to end it was a children's Life-boat effort.

The only " grown-up " contribution to it was a lecture which the Honorary Secretary of the Appledore Branch had given at the girls' school. It was the interest thus raised by this lecture which first set these three thinking that h y might do something to help the Life-boats.

At the Play.

From " At Mrs. Beam's " : Mrs. BEAM : Why, I had some change of his, three farthings it was. He seems to have forgotten all about it. However, I'll put it in the Life-boat box.

The following are fragments of talk picked up by our Collectors during a collection at a London theatre.

" Life-boat! Great Scott, I've been wrecked twice ! " And he put in half a crown.

" I've only got sixpence and a safety pin, which will you have ? " In the end he put in both.

A Contrast.

Still more interesting is the following contrast between stalls and pit.

An expensively-dressed lady, on her way to her seat in the stalls said, very coldly, when the Life-boat box was held out to her : " No, I've already paid for my seat! " A man who found the pit full came out again with the half-crown intended for his evening's pleasure in his hand.

" Bad luck," said the Collector at the door, " Give it to the Life-boat instead." And he did.

Foreign Life-boat Services.

It is with great pleasure that I publish elsewhere in this issue an article which Rear-Admiral Reynolds, Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, has kindly written for us on the Life-saving Service of the United States. It is an article which should be read -with special interest by all who are connected with our own Life-boat Service, tecause of the radical differences between the two, although no one will read the graphic accounts of actual rescues, which come at the end of the article, without at once recognising the kinship in courage, endurance and fine seaman- ship, between the two Services.

We have now reviewed in The Life- Boat nearly all the Life-boat Services of the world the French, the German in its activities during and since the war the Dutch, the Spanish, the Norwegian, the Danish, and DOW the Service of the United States. There still remain and they will be dealt with in the next two issues of The Life-Boat - the Swedish and Portuguese ' Services. There is also a Service, though, I believe, not very far developed, in Japan, but my letter asking for particulars of it would be still on the way when the earthquake destroyed Tokyo! Of the present position of the Russian Service we have no information, although, two years ago, the Soviet Government applied to the Institution for, and was given, the latest particulars about Life-boats and life-saving appliances. Of neither of these, therefore, can I hope to give readers of The Life- Boat an account in the near future.

Those who have followed this series of articles will have been struck by the ' fact that all the Services except two - the Danish and the American, are, like our own, voluntary organisations. These two are the only Services maintained by the State, and it is because the Service in the United States is the largest of the State Life-boat Services - that Admiral Reynolds' admirable .' article is so interesting.  As will be seen, the U.S. Coast Guard, of which the Life-boat Service forms part, are entrusted with the duties of coast watching, coast communication, and the working of the rocket apparatus,which are performed in this country by the Board of Trade, of the care of the shipwrecked, which is here in the hands of the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society, with other duties, performed here by the Customs Office and harbour authorities, and with a number of duties, such as the ice patrol and the protection of seal fisheries, to which there is nothing analogous round our coasts.

The cost of maintaining the Coast Guard is not given in the article, but I was very much interested to hear personally from Admiral Reynolds who was in this country during the summer, and whom we were very glad to see at the trials of the New Brighton Motor Life-boat at Cowes—that the Budget figure for the maintenance of the Coast Guard for 1923 was eleven million dollars, and that more than half of this sum was for the work of life-saving.

That is to say, the American Life-boat Service costs over a million pounds, or nearly four times as much as our own.

This is emphatic confirmation of the statement which we have not infrequently had to make that whatever are the advantages if any, of placing the Life-boat Service under State control, it would entail a great increase in the cost of maintaining the Service.

A State Service implies permanent crews, and while, in the United States it is possible to employ the crews also in coast watching and revenue work, the fact still remains that they cannot be kept fully occupied. Yet they must be paid as if they were, and they must be well paid, for such men must not only be of fine physique, of good intelligence, and of proved character and courage, but they must be thoroughly well trained men, in fact, who deserve and can command good pay. These facts should be constantly borne in mind by any who are tempted to ask " Why is not our Life-boat Service maintained by the State ? " and also by all Life-boat workers to whom that question may be put.

In no department of our national life has the voluntary principle more fully justified itself than in Life-boat work, and I am sure that all Life-boat workers will share the Committee's pleasure at the Breton Life-Saving Society's award of its Special Grand Medal to the Institution as being " the finest voluntary Life-boat Society in the world." The Line-Throwing Gun.

One of the new Line-throwing Guns described in The Life-Boat for February, 1922, was installed in the Spurn Motor Life-boat early last July. It was not long before its value was shown. On the afternoon of 29th August, during a southerly gale, with a very heavy sea, the sloop Spring, of Hull, stranded on the North Sinks Shoal. When the Life-boat reached the wreck she found that the seas were breaking clean over her, and that the crew had had to lash themselves in the rigging. Owing to the shallow water it was impossible to get near her, and the gun was fired from over fifty yards away.

With the first shot a line was thrown over the wreck, and a rope was hauled from the wreck to the Life-boat, The Spring by this time was afloat, but was being heavily pounded by the seas, and was continually striking on the bottom.

By means of the rope the Life-boat was able to hold the vessel's head to the sea.

while the crew set their sails and worked her into deep water, eventually getting her clear of the sands.

In the opinion of the Coxswain she could not have stood much longer the pounding of the seas, so that it was this prompt use of the Line-throwing Gun which saved the crew of three men from drowning and the vessel from destruction.

Centenary Gifts.

We are already beginning to receive centenary gifts. The first of them is a cheque for £100 from the Rugby Union, in commemoration of the double fact that the Union as well as the Institution celebrates next year the completion of its first century. The Institution has received this gift with all the greater pleasure, since it hopes that the Rugby Union has set an example which will be followed by many other bodies connected with sport. For who should be more ready than the sportsmen of Great Britain to recognise and admire the courage and ready resource in difficulty and danger of our Life-boatmen ! A Present from the Navy.

On 27th September the Second Coxswain and crew of the Longhope Life-boat were invited on board H.M.S.

Coventry, the flagship of the Fleet lying at Scapa. They were received by Rear Admiral George H. Baird, C.B., who congratulated them on their fine service to the s.s. Citos, of Helsingborg. This vessel lost her propeller when off the Orkneys, and was drifting ashore on the west end of Stroma on 12th September with a whole gale blowing and a very heavy sea. The Life-boat, which was called out about 9.0 in the morning, found the Citos on her beam ends, with her deck cargo of pulp and wood loose.

Six of her men had already tried to get away in a boat and been drowned, but there were eight still on board.

It was at very great risk to them- selves, owing to the position of the steamer and her shifting cargo, that the crew of the Life-boat got alongside, but they succeeded in doing so, and rescued the eight men.

In recognition of the risk which they had run, and the skill which they had shown, Admiral Baird presented them with £50 in an envelope inscribed: " Presentation to the Coxswain and Crew of Longhope Life-boat from officers and men of H.M. Fleet at Scapa, as token of appreciation of excellent work performed on 12th September, 1923." Cruise of the New Brighton Boat.

On completing her trials at Cowes last July, the Wittiam and Kate Johnston, the first of the 60-foot Barnett Twin- screw Cabin Motor Life-boats made a tour round Great Britain—the first time" that such a thing has been attempted—before going to her Station, New Brighton, on the Mersey. She went up the East Coast and round the north of Scotland ; touched at Douglas, Isle of Man, and at Belfast, Kingstown, and other places on the east coast of Ireland; crossed to Padstow and Bristol, and then went up the Welsh coast to the Mersey.

The length of the tour was over 2,000 miles ; it took over two months; and in the course of it thousands of people visited the Boat. I had hoped to publish an illustrated account of it in this issue, but as there is little space, and as such an interesting experiment deserves to be described in full, it is held over until the February number..