Presentation of Prizes in Greater London.

THE challenge shield and individual prizes won by Greater London schools in the Life-boat Essay Competition this year were presented by Major- General the Right Hon. J. E. B.

Seely, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O. (now Lord Mottistone), a vice-president of the Institution, and coxswain of the Brook, Isle of Wight, life-boat, at the Caxton Hall, Westminster, on 14th June.

General Seely at the same time pre- sented the challenge shield and some of the individual prizes for the South- East of England.

The Mayor of Westminster (the Rev.

E. St. G. Schomberg) again presided, supported by the Mayoress, Mr. B.

Bracken, M.P. for North Paddington, members of the committee of manage- ment and Lieut.-Col. C. R. Satter- thwaite, O.B.E., secretary of the In- stitution.

The two challenge shields presented by General Seely had been won by Violet Berryman, of St. Luke's School, Paddington, and Gordon Groves, of Portland Senior Boys' School, South Norwood.

General Seely's Address.

After presenting the prizes General Seely said : I see on the agenda, as it is called, a speech by General Seely, but I will be very brief, because it is much better to sing songs, as we are going to do, than to listen to speeches. I have only to say that I am very glad again to be allowed to present these prizes. I have read some of the essays, and what touched me most was the one by the little girl who felt she could not really be a life-boatman. She said : " You see, unfortunately I was born a girl, and I do not suppose I could ever become a man." Do you know, the girls write about life-boats just as well as the boys. It is a very close thing; 155 girls have won prizes and 158 boys, so that you girls can say to yourselves, if it comes to writing about a life-boat: " We can do it just as well as these mere men," and, if that little girl is listening to me, I hope she will take heart of grace and be very glad that she was born a girl.

THE WORK OF WOMEN.

I have been a life-boatman for a great part of my life, not from any merit of my own, but because I live in so small a place that, unless everybody who knows anything at all about pulling an oar goes into the boat, we could not manage; so, of course, I have to be one, whether I like it or not, but I do like it and am proud to be one. Very often we could not launch a boat if it were not for the women and even the girls. Everybody has to pull at critical times in order to get the boat afloat, and there is no distinction between men and women, except that I do not think we have ever had a woman " life- boatman "; but please let us remember that the girls are likely to do as great service as are the boys. (Applause.) When.I first joined the service, which was thirty-three years ago, there were no motor boats. Now, more than half the life-boats round the coast are motor life-boats, great big things, some of which cost as much as £10,000, and wonderful work they do; and the life in a motor life-boat is just as hard as in a pulling and sailing one. The boat to which I belong is still a pulling and sailing life-boat. It is a very good boat; it has saved several hundreds of lives, and I hope it will save several hundreds more. There are still over fifty of these pulling and sailing life- boats, but we hope to be able to put motors into all those in which they will really work even under the sort of conditions that prevail in these boats.

What happens is this. It is a stormy night; you cannot possibly see the rocks, because, very likely, many of them are awash ; and if you could see them you would not be able to avoid them, because the swirl of the sea sends you this way and that way.

However, off you go, if you are lucky.

It is a great thrill. A big wave comes along—and perhaps you are about a quarter of a mile out. " Here comes a big 'un," says the cox. (I am acting cox now.) Up you go, ever so high, almost the height of this room. Then you come down with a smash on to a rock. Our late cox used to say to me : " I 'low, Mr. John, we had better have our teeth screwed in tighter next time," because you really do feel as if all your teeth are being knocked out by the force of the blow. You would think it impossible to build a motor which would stand that kind of shock, but I think we have done it now. So I hope next time you come—perhaps not next year, but the year after—to write a life-boat essay, you will be able to describe how we progressed first to motor life-boats and then to little motors to help to propel the pulling and sailing life-boats, which, up to now and at present, have to be manned solely by man power and sail power.

THE HELP OF THE WHOLE NATION.

All this costs a great deal of money, so when you get home to your parents, if you find they are feeling very rich to-night, I hope you will tell them that any little they can spare for the life- boats is very urgently needed. It is not so much that we want their sub- scriptions, but we want you and them to know that, owing to these develop- ments, it is really essential that we should keep up our income.

I do not think we shall see the time —even the youngest of you—when we shall be able to slacken our efforts in the life-boat cause. It is a great cause, as all the essays have pointed out. It is a splendid thing to be privileged to take part in a life-saving service. It has all the advantages of war in bring- ing out courage and self-sacrifice, with none of its drawbacks. The pity of it is that you cannot all be life-boatmen and life-boatwomen, but the life-boats depend upon the interest of our whole people in this great service. You, my dear children, have contributed in a real degree to the welfare of the life- boat cause and the men who man the life-boats by taking an interest in it and writing these admirable essays.

I cordially congratulate all the prize- winners and all the schools from which they come, and I hope, as you grow up, you will not altogether forget the time when you were told quite truly by an acting coxswain of a life-boat that the efforts you made to familiarize your- selves with" the life-boat service and to write a little story about it was of real and permanent value to the life-boat cause and the life-boatmen. (Applause.) Mr. Frederick Woodhouse then sang five sea songs: " Ye Gentlemen of England," "Sea Fever," "Spanish Ladies," " A-roving " and " Fire Down Below." A vote of thanks to General Seely, the Mayor and Mr. Woodhouse was proposed by Mr. Bracken and seconded by Mr. C.' G. Ammon, a member _of the committee of management..