THE Empire Exhibition, Scotland, 1938, at Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, was closed at the end of October. The Institution had its own pavilion1 where it exhibited the motor life-boat of the 46-feet Watson cabin type which had been built on the Clyde for the new station at Tobermory, models of life- boats from 1789 up to the present time, its own medals for gallantry, and medals awarded to it by foreign life-boat societies, a chart of life-boat stations round Great Britain and Ireland, and photographs' of the life-boat service in action.

During the six months visitors to the pavilion put in the collecting boxes £1,053 19s. 6d., and they bought life-boat books, souvenirs and post- cards to the value of £432 13*. 6d., so that the gross takings were £1,486 13s.

There were 20,461 life-boat souvenirs sold, 1,071 life-boat books, and 2,286 1 A preliminary article on the Life-boat Pavilion appeared in The Life-boat (or June, 1938.

postcards. The most popular souvenirs were the pencils, of which 11,987 were sold. Next came the toy figures of a life-boatman, 2,460, and next the toy motor life-boats, 2,000. Some 35,000 life-boat leaflets were distributed free.

It is interesting to recall that the Tobermory boat is not the first life- boat to take part in an exhibition in Glasgow. Glasgow held its first inter- national exhibition in 1888, the year after Queen Victoria's golden jubilee.

The Glasgow Herald, in the Empire Exhibition supplement which it pub- lished just before this year's exhibition was opened, had an article by a visitor to that first exhibition. The article began: "On a summer forenoon, all but fifty years ago, I stood beside a life-boat that was mounted in the main avenue of the International Exhibition at Kelvingrove Park. I was very young, I was very excited, and I saw the aged Queen pass by.".