I AM sure that readers who are not attracted by a tale of perils at sea in open boats will find much to surprise and hearten them in General Seely's " Launch ! " It is an animating book, for it has implications which involve more than the life-saving service about our coasts.

Many people to-day are properly concerned lest society should be wrecked and lost in the storms of contentious humanity. Let them read General Seely's moving relation of the voluntary service for life-saving at sea. It puts mankind in another and better light.

We are often counselled to abandon hope because human nature is unchangeable.

May be it is. The author of " Launch !" does not answer that, but he does persuade us there would be little need to worry over its immutable character if only we appealed to its magnaminity and not to its fears. Surprising things might happen then. In Ireland, it seems, there really was one call, and in the most dreadful period of its recent history, which made men forget their hates, and work together in a common cause. It was the summons to the Life-boat. For a time they were not Irish, not this or that. They were fellowmen, acting together, with no hope of anything except that they might live long enough to do good to strangers in extremity.

Men will not give us their best except they have the certainty of gain ? " Launch ! " proves that to be a precious delusion of the mugwumps. The .glimpses its author gives us of humble men, with no promise of reward or publicity overcoming appalling circum- stances by skill and endurance on behalf of people unknown to them, helps to correct the ugly impression we may have acquired through other activities of mankind in these late days. If the lesson in this book were widely known, and its virtues became active, then " Launch!" might even aid in the saving of society from its perils.

The book has an introduction by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales, E.G., and a coloured cover, showing a Life- boat launch, specially drawn for it by that very distinguished artist, Mr. Frank Brangwyn, as a gift to the Institution.

It is published by Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton, and is now on sale in two editions—one with a cloth cover at 2s. §d., and the other with a paper cover at Is. It is on sale at all book- sellers, and can also be obtained from the Institution, post free, at 2s. lOd.

and Is. 4d.

Honorary Secretaries of Branches can be supplied with copies at the wholesale rate, for sale at Life-boat Houses and at bazaars and other Life-boat functions..