The Sun.
London, England, 1860-04-28 00:00:00

TELLERS,

PING LIFE FROM SHIPWRECK.

(From the Manchester Examiner and Times.)

A more unpretending, but, at the same time, a
more interesting document than the report of the
National Lifeboat Institution is rarely issued from
the press. The novel reader may perhaps fail to
find excitement in it ; the man of business may not
see in it the details of commercial information which
go to make up his " whole duty of man ;" but a few
moments' consideration will show either of these
gentlemen how readily they may procure in it
either one or other requisite of their daily existence.
The report of the Lifeboat Institution forms, in
fact, a sort of neutral territory where business and
romance may meet without endangering each
other's safety. It is a border ground where com-
mercial life, under one of its most terribly necessi-
tous conditions, comes face to face with all that is
romantic, heroic, and chivalrous, and where it
separates itself for the time from the dry details of
counter and counting-house life, as far as is a gallant
vessel in distress from the warehouse keeper who
stocked her cabins with beef and pickles, sugar and
biscuit. The business part of the arrangement,
indeed, scarcely appears in the report of the Life-
boat Institution, but it leaves its traces very strongly
imprinted there. It only goes as far as " pleasant
weather" carries the deeply and richly laden vessel.
When the gale blows and the murky and black-
looking clouds are gathering round the ill-fated
ship, when even amidst the thunder of the wind
the angry dash of the breakers is heard on the lee
shore, when the hapless crew look with despairing
eyes on the sky, the land, and the water, then it is
that business, which, as Young says of sleep, "her
ready homage pays where fortune smiles," deserts
the luckless mariners, and leaves them to the for-
tune of some daring adventurer's aid. It is here
that the Royal National Lifeboat Institution steps
in with what may be called, without exaggeration,
its redeeming hand, and nothing more beautifully
illustrates the beneficent nature of its services than
the simple record of the transactions recorded
in the report for 1859. It is a long list of
noble services from January Ist to December 30th,
and a few of them will be enough to show
what strong claims the institution has on the pub-
lic gratitude. Here is April 15, Goodwin Sands—
terrible name of ill omen to sailors—wind W.N.W.,
sloop Liberal, of Wisbeach, one man saved by the
Walmer lifeboat. Sept. 17 and 18, Misner Haven,
wind N. and W., strong gale, brig Lucinde, of
Memel, 11 men saved by the Southwold lifeboat.
Feb. 28, Jack's Hole Bank—a cognomen fearfully
suggestive of danger—brig Louise, of Genoa, ship
assisted by the crew of the Padstow lifeboat.
March 8, Doom Bar Sands—another hideously sug-
gestive designation—brig Gonsalve, of Nantes, seven
men saved by the Padstow lifeboat. Nov. 1, Holm
Sands, wind S., heavy gale, steamer Shamrock, of
Dublin, 14 men saved by the Lowestoft lifeboat.
Nov. 2, Whitburn, blowing a hurricane, schooner
Anton, of Denmark, 6 men saved by the Whitburn
lifeboat. Nov. 26, Redcar, wind S.E., heavy gale,
brig Fortuna, of Memel, 11 men saved by the Red-
car lifeboat. Dec. 30, Barmouth, wind from the
S.W., blowing a gale, ship Britannia, of Bath,
United States, 14 men saved by the Barmouth life-
boat. Dec. 21, Lytham, weather stormy, the bri-
gantine Hannah Jane, of London, 7 men saved by
the Lytham lifeboat ; and so the record goes on
through a long page, enumerating services of the
most humane and sterling character, in words and
figures as simple as an ordinary entry in a mer-
chant's ledger.
We have said sufficient to show the inestimable
public value of an association like that of the Na-
tional Lifeboat Institution ; but how much more
might be said of the services it has rendered to
what may be called the private and hidden circles
of our life. Running the eye down the list of
vessels to which the boats of the association have
paid a visit, when the wind was blowing " great
guns and small arms," we have of course the most
liberal supply from our own islands. The Betsys,
johns, Georges, and Marys are unmistakeably
attached to the north-east coast. The simple mari-
time nomenclature of Shields and Sunderland is
almost confined to the family circle, and a favourite
son, or a brother, or a wife, or some one " nearer
and dearer," is generally the godfather or god-
mother of the first venture of the small ship-
owner; But every little port and every large
harbour in the island have representatives in the
National Lifeboat Institution list, and from thence
the area of services rendered extends to the natives
of France, Spain, Genoa, Norway, Prussia, United
States, Swedes], Denmark, the whole maritime
world in fact, for misfortune and loss are just as
catholic in their visitations as the services of the
lifeboats on our coasts. Now, looking at the use of
the association in this light, it is the distributor of
an amount of happiness almost incalculable. The
painful picture drawn by Campbell, in his " Plea-
sures of Hope," of the mariner's wife watching for
the barque that " never shall return," is but a copy
of an agonising reality in the life of those connected
with sailors. How many families have theLife.boat
Institution saved from such a terrible fate ? Here
is the romance—not the dead fictitious thing we
read of in love stories but the living, active, ro-
mance which makes life beautiful, and which really
surrounds the Lifeboat Institution with a halo of
renown. All the thrilling narratives that have
been written for a century are sketchy and feeble
before the reality of a lifeboat adventure. Ten or
a dozen, or it may be 20, 30, or 40 men are hang-
ing on to the shrouds of a shipwrecked vessel, as
powerless to help themselves as is the vessel which
gives them a momentary resting place. Death is
literally hanging over them, with his fingers out-
stretched to pull them into his ravenous maw ; and
the only human means to save them is the agency
of a lifeboat. Each one of those poor fellows, who
were one moment dead, and in another restored to
life, was, to use the expressive phrase of the old
Scotch wife, " somebody's bairn ; ' and how many
thankful hearts must their redemption from a
watery grave create. This is no single example
either; it occurs day by day, in the winter season,
round the coasts ; it is miserably frequent during
the recurrence of the equinoctial gales; and the
chances in every seaman's life are about equal
whether he will be wrecked or not. This is the
fate, the destiny of a sailor, and no mechanical in-
genuity will ever wholly obviate it. We may hope
to relieve the death list considerably ; this is,
indeed, the object of the National Life-
boat Institution but we Gan never calculate On
this side of the prophetic change when "there
shall be no more sea," on the abolition of shipwrecks,
and the total abrogation of human misery by losses
and disasters on the ocean.
The moral of our story is, of course, that the Na-
tional Life•boat Institution is one of the most worthy
of our national associations. We have essayed to
point out the munificent labour which the institu-
tional is engaged in, and we may ask the public who
agree with us in our views, in seamen's phrase, to
"lend a hand" in extending the bountiful work of
this society. There is a general indifference, or,
perhaps it would be more correct to say, a want of
knowledge, in inland places of the necessities of such
an institution as this one we now recommend. Peo-
ple generally only know the dangers of a seamen's
life When some great calamity like that of the loss
of the Royal Charter comes before them. They, do
not think of the hundreds of cases occurring
every year, where one, or two, or three, or more
seamen drop at a time into a watery grave, and
where the annual aggregate number of such losses
dwarf even the enormous destruction of the Royal
Charter. Last year, for instance, the losses by shiP;
wreck on our coast amounted to 1,646 lives.
persons saved, there were 2,332, making together In
the course of one year close upon 4,000 people who
were exposed to the miseries of shipwreck on the
shores of the British isles. Since 1824 the Lifeboat
Institution has been instrumental in aiding to save
11,401 persons, and we see at a glance what a largo
share the working of the Institution has in our nit'
tional comfort. At a moderate computation, the
number of the lost will be- about three-fourths 01
those saved • another very powerful reason why the
society should receive public assistance. But the
last, and perhaps the most powerful claim which
the society has upon the public at this moment s,
that its liabilities for life-boat establishments amount
to nearly £4,000. We cannot say, indeed, that the
work of the institution is one of pounds, shillings,
and pence. It is too grand and too noble to be mixed uP
with a pecuniary motive; but it is true, neverthelesl;
that it cannot be carried on without aid from the
beneficent and thoughtful. There are scores ofplacf ;
where a lifeboat might be advantageously placed _
but this cannot be done without money. The
is
in
th continuale
boats improvement,
which
the
association
have carea
tp re neededse
but this cannot be done without money either. rrno
men who are engaged in the lifeboat service are, 11 3
doubt, as brave and devoted as men can be ; but 1
is not fitting that these men should risk their lives'
expose themselves to danger, hardship, and
incon-
veuience without fee or reward, All these are lIIa
tors which the Institution has to provide for, an
the only means by which they can providea,t
them are the generosity and benevolence of Eng"s..o..
men. An appeal to the country is not, indeed, 'es,
cuired; it only needs that the merits and nee
ities of this Institution should be brought befrer
the public, and not a single wealthy man, whet, or
he be a shipowner, manufacturer, agriculturi
merchant, but would, we are assured, eheertin I
contribute his mite in such a cause.

WRECK AND Loss OF SIX LIVES.—A
from Dartmouth announces that the Nyssia, Captain l'„0$1
nitzky, of and for Stettin from Liverpool, with a 0-06
cargo, capsized and sunk off the Start on WednesdaY•
462 gram adds that " six men were drowned ; master
two men saved."