IT is not only on the seas that Life-boatmen show the fine stuff of which they are made, and we feel sure that the following story will be read with as much pleasure and pride as any story of gallantry and devotion in the actual work of rescue.

Mr. Richard Cowling, of Scarborough, retired at the end of 1928, after serving for thirty-four years as a member of the Scarborough Life-boat Crew, and then for fourteen years as Signalman. He was awarded a Life-boatman's certrficate of service, and also a pension, on the usual scale, in recognition of 1m services as Signalman. These pensions, as workers for the Institution know, are given to Coxswains, Second Coxswains, Bowmen and Signalmen, that is. to those who have certain regular duties to perform in connexion with the Station, and for these duties receive a retaining fee, in addition to the rewards which they, and the rest of the Crew, receive for every service or exercise launch in which they take part. The signalman's scale of pension is 3s. for each year of service, so that Mr. Cowling's pension amounts to £2 0,s. 6 i a year.

A Journal's Criticism.

In the issue of the weekly paper John Bull for 27th April last, an article appeared on Mr. Cowling. The facts of his service and pension were correctly given, but the writer expressed himself as shocked at the smallness of the pension, and the article was headed " Three- Ha'pence a Day for a Hero ! " Such comments are made in evident ignorance of the very great difference between pensions in the ordinary sense of the word paid to those who have given their full-time service, and the pensions paid by the Institution to men who are not its servants, who earn their livings in other ways, and who give the Institution service which in the course of a whole year, takes only a few days of their time. There is no need for us to do more than point out this difference, because Mr. Cowling's own action is the best reply which could be made to the critic's comments.

As a result of the article, John Bull received anonymously a hundred pounds to give to Mr. Cowling. The paper's representative then called on Mr. Cowling and offered him the money. He replied : " I am satisfied with what the Institution has done for me. I don't want to accept this money. If you do as I wish you'll take it and give it to the Institution. That would be the best possible thing that could be done." "The Real Bulldog Breed." John Bull reported this reply in another article, called " The Real Bulldog Breed," and then sent the cheque to the Institution, with a letter from the Acting Editor in which he said : "I think that we should be fulfilling the wishes of the donor if we were to pay over this money to the Royal National Life-boat Institution. . . . Kindly accept my best wishes for the success of your Society, 'whose fine work none appreciates more than John Bull. ' The whole Life-boat Service will feel proud of Mr. Cowling's action. It is easy to say that he did the right thing, and that to have accepted the gift would have been to associate himself with what he felt was an unfair criticism of the Institution. That is true. Yet the money had been freely offered him. He was entitled to take it. He could have taken it, while repeating that he was satisfied with what the Institution had done for him. That he refused such a large sum rather than benefit in any v?ay by what he felt to be unfair, was an action worthy of the highest traditions of the Service—of the generosity, the honesty and the independence which the country has learnt to associate with the name of Life-boatman.

We are very glad to be able to end this story of a Life-boatman's fine action by saying that Mr. Cowling has consented to accept from the Institution a small part of the gift which has come to it through him..