"A party of trustees, with their wives and daughters, agree to meet at some commodious hotel in the vicinity of a life-boat station, the day is fine, and the party are perhaps themselves rowed out a couple of miles—a daring deed, which supplies them with a topic for after-dinner conversation for months to come.

"The chief boatman explains the qualities of his boat, exhibits her air-cases, her cork fenders, her valves for discharging water, and her iron keel, by which she rights herself, and tells how well she behaved in the last December gale.

"The trustees, with the young ladies and their cavaliers, adjourn to their hotel, or, peradventure, 'rough it' over a dainty pic-nic banquet on the sands, and, after imbibing a due portion of champagne and claret, proceed to compliment each other, to laud alternately the qualities of their boat, the bravery and skill of her crew, or the liberality of some neighbouring patron.

"We appeal to the recollections of many of our readers, especially on the east coast, whether the above incidents do not constitute the prominent proceedings of a life-boat inspection." This description of life-boat trials is taken from a book published at the time of the Great Exhibition in 1851 and sent by Mr. Ray Ling, honorary secretary of the Great Yarmouth and Gorleston branch. Plus ca change . . . . hardly..