Abandon Ship, by Vice-Admiral Gordon Campbell, V.C., D.S.O.

Hodder & Stoughton. 7s. Qd.

Heroes of British Life-boats, by Gerda Shairer and Egon Jameson. Harrap.

7s. 6d.

THOSE who read Admiral Campbell's Brave Men All will equally enjoy this new book of his. There are no life-boat rescues in it, but his five stories are all of wrecks in different parts of the world.

They belong to the second half of the eighteenth and the early years of the nineteenth century—the years just before the establishment of the first life-boat services. In those days, ship- wreck brought in its train other and even more terrible dangers and sufferings; attacks by pirates, slavery and, even on the coasts of Europe, struggles with wreckers more intent on plundering the abandoned ship than helping the ship- wrecked. No one could read Admiral Campbell's five stirring tales without being conscious all the time of the immeasurable difference which the life- boat services have made to the ship- wrecked. Nor could anyone read them without agreeing with him that they justify the boast: " The English nation is never so great as in adversity." When one turns to the records of rescues as well as wrecks, one finds the same greatness in adversity, but a new spirit of humanity.

Mrs. Shairer's and Mr. Jameson's lively book is about life-boatmen and their work on the east and south coasts. Among the famous services they describe are those to the Georgia, Sepoy and Monte Nevoso by the Cromer life- boat, the laabo by the St. Mary's, Isles of Scilly, and the Taycraig by Sennen Cove. They have a chapter, too, on the Caister disaster in 1901, one of the most memorable examples in the history of our life-boats of " greatness in ad- versity." They have visited the stations; they have talked to the coxswains; and they tell a number of tales of life-boatmen's experiences at sea which are not to be found among the records of the Institution. They give, too, their impressions of the men themselves. Coxswain Henry Blogg, of Cromer, they found so " gentle and restrained " in manner that he reminded them of a clergyman. Coxswain Spurgeon, of Lowestoft, expounded to them his theory of lucky numbers, and showed them how his own lucky number, four, always occurred in the dates of his successful rescues.

Coxswain Thomas Cocking, of St. Ives, they found always at his look-out..