From a Cripple's Home.

THE Tiny Tims Cripples Home at Eastbourne Las sent to the Eastbourne Branch a gift of 11s. 9d., made up of the children's own farthings. This is the second time that the Tiny Tims have given their money to the Life-boat Service.

From the Captain of a Merchant Ship.

LAST year the Institution sent to the captains of the ships of the principal shipping companies copies of the illustrated history of the Service, called " The Story of the Life-boat," with a request that they would put it in the reading-room or smoking-room of their ships. In reply came from Calcutta a letter from a captain of the British India Steam Navigation Company, saying that his ship was a " comparatively small coasting passenger steamer," that if he were promoted to a larger steamer he would try to raise contributions for the Institution and that, meanwhile he sent £10 10s. " as a small proof of his own admiration " for the Life-boat Service.

From the Employees of a Gas Company.

AMONG the most generous responses to the appeal made to employees of offices and works is a gift of over £72 from the South Metropolitan Gas Works.

This is the highest collection ever made in these works for an outside charity.

The reason is that, when the appeal was made, one of the company's own boats had just came in from Newcastle, and an extract from her log had been posted in the works, which showed that at one period of the voyage, after steaming hard for six hours in the face of a gale, she had actually gone back three and a half miles. It was that proof of the powerlessness of steam against a heavy gale, which had brought home the meaning of the Life-boat Service.

From a Life-boatman of Forty Years Ago.

A GIFT of a pound has been received from Los Angeles, California, from Mr.

John W. Popperwell with the following letter :— " It may perhaps interest you to know I am an old Life-boatman, having been a member of the crew of the first Walton-on-the-Naze Life-boat,' Honourable Artillery Co.' I was in this boat when she was launched at her christening ceremony on November 18th, 1884, and on her first service trip that same night when we were called out to the Sunk Sand. I was also one of her crew six weeks later when on Christmas Day, 1884, we saved the crew of twenty-five from the full-rigged ship Deike Rickmers, of Bremerhaven, wrecked on the Longsand in a N.E. gale and snowstorm.

" If you would kindly send me your Journal from time to time I should greatly appreciate it, for I am very interested in the work of the boat, but being absent from England for upwards of forty years I have somewhat lost touch." A Thank-Offering.

A DONATION of £10 has been received by the Manchester, Salford and District Branch as a thank-offering for the recovery from a serious illness of Sir William Milligan, M.D., L.S.D., J.P., the Chairman of the Branch.

"A Bit of Extra Money." THE Manchester and Salford Branch has also received £10 from a gentleman who wrote : " I have made a bit of extra money and my father was once shipwrecked so I think I will give a donation to the Life-boat Institution." Biscuits for the Life-boats: Gifts from the Manufacturers.

MESSES. Huntley & Palmers, Messrs.

Peek, Frean, and Messrs. W. & K.

Jacobs have presented the Institution with over 150 tins of biscuits for use on board its Life-boats. Biscuits, chocolate and rum are carried by all Life-boats as emergency rations, and both biscuits and chocolate are supplied to the Institution as a gift by the leading manufacturers.

From Boy Scouts.

The Linthwaite (Huddersfield) troop of Boy Scouts and Cubs, which often camps in Runswick Bay, has sent 7s. Qd.

to the Institution through the Yorkshire Evening Post, to which the Scoutmaster wrote : " We are interested in anything that takes place on the coast near Runswick and Staithes, and so I suggested to the Scouts and Cubs that it would be nice if they saved their pennies, and instead of buying sweets gave the money to the Life-boat at Staithes. They jumped at the idea, and the consequence is the enclosed P.O. for 7s. 6d. Will you please send it to the right people ? We are not above 16 or 18 in number all told, and the boys do not come from wealthy homes. In fact most of the people here are only working half or quarter time." Anonymous Gold.

The North of England District Office has received from an anonymous donor a gold sovereign which was sent through the post embedded in a piece of cardboard.

Half-crowns from Dirty Hands.

On Life-boat Day at Southampton last year a friend of the Institution went collecting in his motor launch from all the yachts in the River Hamble and up Southampton Water. He collected £6 15s. and wrote : "I was surprised to find that a number of the dirtiest paid-hands on the smallest boats were willing to subscribe their modest halfcrowns." From the Primrose League.

At the request of a member of the Piel (Barrow) Ladies' Life-boat Guild, the Barrow Habitation of the Primrose League, which sells primroses on Primrose Day in aid of charities, last year gave half the proceeds of their sales, amounting to over £12, to the Life-boat Service.

From the Life-boat Essay Competition.

The Fulwell Council Boys' School, Sunderland, one of whose pupils was a prize winner in the Life-boat Essay Competition last year, collected 15s. for the Life-boat Service " to commemorate the winning of a certificate." From H.M.S. " Wivern." The officers and ship's company of H.M.S. Wirern, of the Third Destroyer Flotilla, sent £15 11s. 3d. from their Canteen Fund as a gift to the Life-boat Service, when paying off on their return from the China Station.

From "The Men of the Fleet." The Admiralty has sent a gift of £1,300, this being part of the surplus revenue from the Naval Canteen trading for last year. The remainder of the surplus has been divided among charities or funds connected with the Navy. In making this gift the Admiralty states that it has been given to the Life-boat Service at " the wishes of the men of the Fleet," A Canadian's Gifts for Twenty-five Years.

A gift of £5 has been received from a Canadian living in Quebec, who first contributed twenty-five years ago, when he sent the Institution £5. He has contributed regularly ever since, and the Institution has now received from him £190.

From Four Schools The boys of Harrow School have sent a donation of £15 Thirty-one children at a school in Co.

Monaghan, in the Irish Free State, many of them of very poor families, unasked, collected among themselves 6 . fid. for the Life-boats.

A class at Lewisham Bridge School have sent 3s. 6d. In sending it the master wrote : " This amount was collected by the boys of my class after hearing my reading of the pamphlet sent out in connection with the essay competition. These boys are all very poor, and I can assure you that their coppers represent a very real sacrifice." A donation of five shillings has come with the following letter from five girls of a Swansea school : " Thank you so much for showing us over the Mumbles Life-boat. We enjoyed it so much, and none of us have ever been over a Life-boat before. We will always remember it and think about it on stormy nights, when it might be out at sea." From the Men who are Building the New Tractors.

The men of the Four Wheel Drive Lorry. Company, which is building the new type of Motor Caterpillar Tractor for launching Life-boats, held a dance last year, and sent the whole of the profits, amounting to £18 11*'., as a gift to the Institution..