IN the last number of The Lifeboat was published an article on the Stantons and Stephensons of Boulmer, the two families in that little fishing village from which are drawn the greater part of the Crew of the Boulmer Life-boat.

There has been a Life-boat Station there since 1825, and in that time over 160 lives have been rescued. The present boat, a Pulling and Sailing Life-boat of the Self-righting type, was built in 1911, out of a legacy which the Institution had received in 1909 from Mr. G. E.

Dawes, of Brockley, London. The Lifeboat is named Arthur R. Dawes in memory of his son, who was serving in the ship Jason as an apprentice when she was wrecked near Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on 5th December, 1893, all her crew of twenty-seven being drowned but one.

In the letter which accompanied the legacy, Mr. George Dawes described the last voyage and the wreck of the Jason —" the event which," so he wrote, " influenced my father largely to make his bequest." It is such a strange story of persistent ill-fortune, ending in complete tragedy, that we think that all who read the article on the Stantons and Stephensons, will be interested to read also this story of wreck which led to the Boulmer Life-boat being named " Arthur E. Dawes." " The Jason, a large sailing-ship, sailed from Middlesbrough on her last voyage in ballast for Cardiff, where she took in a cargo of coal for Calcutta. She sailed on a Friday, and on the following Sunday was cut down to the water's edge in a collision off the south coast of Ireland.

She lay in Cork Harbour several months for repairs, eventually reaching Calcutta, where she lay several months waiting for a cargo. One of the apprentices was lost here. He was found in the river, and is supposed to have been murdered by natives. The Jason sailed from Calcutta for Boston, U.S.A., with a cargo of jute, and was caught in the Indian Ocean in a hurricane and dismasted, the crew and captain and officers, also the captain's wife, losing nearly all their clothes, and the captain having one leg broken in two places.

The ship arrived eventually at Mauritius without having sighted a single vessel able to assist. Some of the officers, who lived ashore while the ship was being refitted, lost all they had saved from the ship in a fire which destroyed part of the town, and here they lost another apprentice, killed through falling out of the rigging. The owners entirely refitted the ship here and sent out a fresh captain to replace the one invalided home. The ship sailed from Mauritius for Boston, U.S.A., when completed, and was not heard of again until news arrived of her loss off Cape Cod. I give you the above particulars relating to the last voyage of the Jason, as it was through the wreck and loss of my brother that my father decided to present the Life-boat Institution with a Boat to commemorate his name." Of the wreck itself this account was given in a private letter quoted in a Cape Cod paper: " The night of 5th December, 1893, was very dark, a terrific storm raging and hurricane blowing. The life-saving crews were all on the alert ; a ship, which proved to be the Jason, came in sight of the Cape Cod Light-ship. She was being driven at a terrific speed along the bay. She struck upon the reefs of Wellfleet, where she was broken in two by the heavy sea ; it was impossible for the Life-boats to go out—it would have been madness to attempt it. Wellfleet is only a small city, and as soon as any person mentions the name " Jason" they can get the history of the wreck from any man, woman, boy or girl, so terrible was the night that it cannot be forgotten." It was because of this wreck off the coast of Massachusetts in 1893 that, eighteen years later, a Life-boat bearing the name of one of the Jason's apprentices was stationed at Boulmer, Northumberland, over 4,000 miles away from that spot where he and his twenty-five shipmates were drowned..