The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-29 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 1870.

Round the sea-beaten coasts of England there are
now distributed and maintained at the principal
points of interest, that is of danger, upwards of 200
lifeboats. This good work has been accomplished
within less than a score of years, indeed within
less than nineteen. The agency through which
this noble fleet has been called into existence is
that of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
Appealing to the country for its charitable aid, with,
a view to the preservation of human life, more or
less constantly imperilled along our island sea-
board by the dangers of the deep encountered
by those who "go down to the great sea in
ships," this intensely and essentially patriotic
association has been instrumental, in less than two
decades, in gathering together, in one thoroughly
well-organised scheme, 220 admirably-equipped
Lifeboats, now the property of the association. It
is wonderful, however, to add that eight alone of
these lifeboats have had to be constructed at the
direct instance, and at the immediate cost, of the
Society itself —the remaining 212 being, within the
last fourteen years, gifts to the National Lifeboat
Institution. A charitable individual set the thence-
forth memorable example, fourteen years a o, which
has been so magnificently followed. A benevolent
lady was the one who thus commenced the good work.
A gentleman of kindred generosity did the like shortly
afterwards. Another lady gave a lifeboat as a
thank-offering, because of her having been herself
preserved from drowning, providentially. A couple
of sisters, in tender memory of a third whom they
had lost, presented another of these lifeboats en
the affecting condition that it should be entitled
" The Sisters' Memorial." Inland towns, beginning
with Ipswich, had themselves represented, here and
there, along the coast line by lifebciats of their own
contribution. All kinds of institutions—yacht
clubs, Sunday schools, the universities, the commer-
cial travellers, the united benefit societies, and the
Society of Friends, public journals, and Parsee
merchants—vied with:each other in aiding and abet-
ting, in the same practical manner, the generous and
systematic efforts of the National Life Boat Insti-
tution. The _result is, as we have seen, that the
scheme, originally set on foot less than nineteen
years ago, has within that interval, and chiefly by
means of these last fourteen years of volunteered
benefaction from the hands of private indi-
viduals and of other spontaneous contributors—
the result is that the comprehensive and
elaborate scheme, represented at first by a
modest cluster of merely six or eight lifeboats,
has been so far completed that its now aggregate
of 220 lifeboats occupy " nearly all suitable and
available positions on the coasts of the United
Kingdom." That most satisfactory and comfort-
ing declaration is made in the immediately forth-
coming number (77) of the quarterly journal of
the association—the always instructive and often
enthralling periodical called The Lifeboat. There,
in that forthcoming instalment (Vol. vii., p. 506)
that most gratifying acknowledgment is made, the
acknowledgment that the work the promoters and
projectors of the institution set themselves to
accomplish is as nearly as possible already
accomplished. That a complete system of lifeboats
at any rate has been established, and that all that re-
mains to be done now is to see that they are maintained
in a constant state of efficiency and completeness.
How much is required in this way may be recog-
nised, upon the instant, upon a mere glance at the
very admirable broadsheet just issued by the Asso-
ciation, upon which broadsheet the require-
ments cf a Lifeboat Station are represented
vividly, both by explanatory letterpress and
by woodcut embellishments. Sufficient for
us here to add, by way of illustration,
that the equipment of stores supplied to and used
in the fitting up of one of the lifeboats of the institu-
tion—including among them such items as speaking
trumpet, compass and telescope, tackle-blocks, grap-
nels and carronades--there are exactly as many
distinct articles (52) as there are weeks in the year !
Besides which, the permanent income required for
the maintenance of the existing fleet of 220 lifeboats
is one of not less than 120,000 sterling !

NOTWITHSTANDING the lamentable event which
occurred on Monday morning, and by which England
was deprived of one of her foremost statesmen, and
Europe of one of its most accomplished diplomatists,
both Houses of Parliament continued their arduous
labours on Monday evening. It is to be wished that
they had worked with equally satisfactory results. It
is in 'no captious or party spirit we say that while
the House in which the Liberals have the ascen-
dancy did well, the House in which the Conservatives
preponderate did ill. The amendment to the Irish
Land Bill, moved indeed by the Whig Lord CLAN-
RICARDE, but supported by the great bulk of the
Conservative peers, and by Lord CAIRNS with
vehement warmth, strikes at the foundation principle
of the Bill. To reject the provision by which the
burden of establishing a claim to improvements will
rest on the landlords, instead, as heretofore, on the
tenants, is simply to render the bill futile ; nor
is it possible that Government can assent to
such an amendment. The arguments used
in support of it shew that a majority of the Peers
have not yet comprehended the root idea of this
measure; that it is an exceptional Act, an Act
different from, and, in some respects, opposed to all
previous legislation, because all previous legislation
has failed to secure justice for Irish tenants. Unless