THE ' Civil Service Life-boat Fund held its sixty-eighth annual meeting at the Home Office on 15th May. The Right Hon. Lord Southborough, P.C., G.C.B., G.C.M.G., G.C.V.O., K.C.S.I., the chairman and honorary treasurer of the fund and a vice-president of the Institution, was in the chair. Mr.

H. A. Clark, I.S.O., the honorary secretary, reported that the fund had, since its establishment in 1866, con- tributed £100,000. It has provided twenty-three life-boats, and there are at present six Civil Service motor life-boats on the coast, at Margate (Kent), Southend-on-Sea (Essex), Walmer (Kent), Whitehills (Banff- shire), Donaghadee (Co. Down), and Kingstown (Co. Dublin). As a result of the meeting, a seventh motor life- boat is to be provided, for St. David's (Pembrokeshire).

With the exception of Kingstown, which will cease to be a Civil Service station when the present boat comes to the end of its term of service, all the boats are endowed, and, when the time comes, will be replaced by new boats out of the fund. The fund also contributes £1,000 a year to the main- tenance of its boats, and pays the rewards given to the crews.

The individual subscriptions of civil servants are small, mostly half-crowns or under, and it shows the wide interest of the Civil Service in the life-boats that last year these subscriptions amounted to £3,157 6s. 7d..