It is not only to our Life-boat workers, that we are indebted for help in raising funds. Numbers of the men and women who take part in the sterner side of Life-boat work on the coast have given us generous help on the financial side as well. For the second year the Fishwives of Cullercoats made an appeal on the occasion of the quarterly exercise of the Boat. Last year they collected nearly £60. This year the sum is over £90. Once again, also, they hired a band, entertained it to tea, for both of which they paid themselves, so that the whole of the sum collected goes to the funds of the Institution. In order to do this, they had given concerts during June, and thus obtained a sum sufficient to cover the expenses of the Life-boat appeal. Several of the fishwives raised over £3 each, and one, Mrs. Polly Donkin, actually collected £13 3s. d.

taking her box round to all her customers | during the previous week. As she col- lected more than three times as much as | any one else, she deserves our special thanks.

The following picturesque account of the launch appeared in the Newcastle Chronicle and Mail:— " The coast is never truly represented unless the figures of its own folk, in their own characteristic dress, are in the picture.

" They were in it on Saturday at Cullercoats and Whitley Bay, which energetically and successfully celebrated their second annual Life-Boat Day— established a year ago upon the initiative of Mr. B. H. Brown, of Springfield, Cullercoats, the Honorary Secretary for the Branch.

" The scene at Cullercoats, where the pro cession started, was instinct with vigorous life.

"'Man the ropes!' " Life - boatmen past, present, and future answered the call. Coxswain James Scott, Second Coxswain John Stocks, and Bowman Willie Tayl or were attended by a picturesque crew of red stockingcapped Life-boatmen, and hauling at the ropes by which the Lifeboat Go-operator No. I was drawn from the • Boathouse up the precipitous cliff-side to the look-out were, in addition to the present crew, old gnarled hands as ancient as John Armstrong's, who is seventy-three, and youthful paws as young as those of the latest recruit to the inshore fishing cobles, " ' Aa wad say Jack Armstrang is the aadest Life-boatman aboot heor,' said Big Donkin, who himself easily carries sixty-eight years. ' But foak winnet knaa whe yor taakin' aboot if ye say Jack Armstrang. Ye'd bettor put doon Jack Pye. He gets nowt else but that.' " The next to him in length of years is Jacob Chisholme, who is affectionately, though somewhat irreverently, known as Old Scranchup. He is seventy,and he was manfully tugging at the ropes until the Boat found an even keel on the Bank Top, where it was awaited by over half a hundred of the fisherwomen and girls.

" They looked very comely, very like a quaint group of old Northumbria, intheir blue fisher gowns, over which they wore shawls and headpieces worked in silk of many colours.

" These expensive and beautiful shawls, many of them Oriental in their rich colouring, are worn only on special occasions.

" ' Such as weddings or gala days,' one of the fisherwomen explained.

" There was sufficient excuse for wear- ing them on Saturday, for everybody was anxious to make a spectacular and financial success of the appeal for funds —very much needed at the present timeowing to the provision by THE ROYAL NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION of many new Motor Life-boats to take the place of the older pulling and sailing craft around the coast.

" The British Legion band from Howden headed the procession, and the women levied toll resolutely all the way from Cullercoats to Whitley, where the Life-boat—which had broken out be- tween its masts a line of flags signalling ' God Save the King'—was launched and proceeded smartly upon its quarterly practice." One has only to look at the picture of the fishwives, with their collecting boxes, to see that the old adage is not as true when it is reversed—that handsome does as handsome is, and we hope that other fishing towns will follow their fine example.