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Life-Boatman Goes Overboard

SHORTLY before noon on the 17th of April, a fishing boat, with two men on board, half a mile off Selsey Bill, was seen from the shore to capsize. A moderate wind was blowing from the south-west, and there was a steep, choppy sea. Within ten minutes the Selsey life-boat Canadian Pacific had been launched, and ten minutes later she was alongside the overturned boat.

One of the men was clinging to her.

The life-boat rescued him. The other man, holding to one of the bottom boards of the boat, was struggling towards the shore. He was already in water too shallow for the life-boat.

One of the life-boat's crew, W. Arnell, at once asked for, and was given, the coxswain's permission to jump over- board to his help. He went over, wearing his life-belt, and had nearly forty yards to swim. He reached the man to find him helpless and drowning.

The seas were breaking over them, and it was only with great difficulty, and at danger to his own life, that Arnell succeeded in dragging the man ashore.

He himself was exhausted and the res- cued man was unconscious, but he was revived by artificial respiration.

The Institution has awarded to T.

ARNELL its thanks inscribed on vellum, £2, in addition to the reward on the ordinary scale of 15s. and £l for damage to his clothes.

To the coxswain and each of the other members of the crew it has awarded 15s. Total rewards to crew and helpers, £14 12s.

While Arnell was swimming from the life-boat a young sailor, Michael James Clayton, of H.M.S. Boxer, was swim- ming out from the shore. The Institu- tion brought his action to the notice of the Royal Humane Society and the officer commanding the Boxer; he has been commended by the Commander- in-Chief, Portsmouth..