The Sun.
London, England, 1858-11-11 00:00:00

COMMUNICATION WITH STRANDED
VESSELS.

During the last few years the National Lifeboat
stitution has had many opportunities for observ-.

,ng the great need that existed for the adoption of

a uniform system of management of the mortar and
rocket apparatus, and for the distribution of instruc-
tions concerning the same on board all merchant
vessels, so that their crews might never be ignorant
of the proper steps to be taken to ensure their own
safety after communication by line had been effected
by the mortar and rocket apparatus with the shore.

The institution has likewise from time to time re-

ceived communications from persons residing on the
ceast, pointing out the necessity that existed for
some such provision, and has had brought under its
notice lamentable instances of the want of know-

ledge of the apparatus by merchant seamen leading
•
to fatal results.
In one instance, the extreme case of five men
passing the rocket line around them, and then all.
leaping overboard together, to be drawn on shore
through the waves en masse, on which occasion
only one of that number reached the land alive.
In a second instance eleven men perished, after a
communication by line had been effected with a
wreck, through one of the crew making the line
fast round his waist, and jumping overboard with
it, when no second communication could be effected.
In a third instance, a rocket line having been
thrown over a schooner wrecked in Bally-
cotton Bay, Ireland, a lad was at once secured
to the end of the line, and a frail log line
was employed to vere him to the shore. The
log line, of course, broke before he was 20 yards'
from the vessel, when he was drawn ashore in
a half-drowned condition by the rocket line ;
but the communication was thus cut off from the
wreck, and no second line could be thrown over it.
Fortunately the vessel held together until the tide
had fallen sufficiently to get her crew out by other
means, or they would have inevitably perished, as
she went to pieces on the following tide. And a
fourth instance is that of the sloop Queen of Grimsby,
wrecked off Yarmouth, on the 19th ult. It is the
opinion of Competent persons that the people on
board the sloop might have been saved in about
half an hour after she struck, had the mate under-
stood how to fasten the line to the mast head. In-
stead of doing so a man had, at the peril of his
life, to go off from the shore to fasten the rope to
the vessel's mast.

With a view of preventing such catastrophes in
future, we append the instructions issued by the
Board of Trade on this important subject :
" DIRECTIONS TO MASTERS AND CREWS OF SHIPS.
"In the event of your vessel stranding on the
coast of the United Kingdom, and the lives of the
crew being placed in danger, assistance will, if
possible, be rendered from the shore in the follow-
ing manner, namely—
" 1. A rocket or shot, with a thin line attached,
will be fired across your vessel. Get hold of this
line as co ni as you can; and when you have secured.
it, let one of the crew be separated from the rest,
and, if in the daytime, wave his hat or his hand,
or a flag or handkerchief; or, if at night, let a
rocket, a blue light, or a gun be fired, or let a light
be displayed over the side of the ship, and be again.
concealed, as a signal to those on shore.
"2. When you see one of the men on shore
separated from the rest, wave a red flag, or (if at
night) show a red light and then conceal it, you
are to haul upon the rocket line until you get a,
tailed black with an endless fall rove through it.
" 3. Make the tail of the block fast to the mast
about 15 feet above the deck, or, if your masts are
gone, to the highest secure part of the vessel ; and.
when the tail-block is made fast, let one of the
crew, separated from the rest, make the signal re-
quired by Article 1 above.
"4. As soon as the signal is seen on shore, a.
hawser will be bent on the whip-line, and will be
hauled off to the ship by those on shore.
"5. When the hawser is got on board, the crew
should at once make it fast to the same part of the
ship as the tailed block is made fast to, only 18
inches higher taking care that there are no turns
of the whip-line round the hawser.
" 6. When the hawser has been made fast on
board, the signal direeted by Article 1 above is to
be repeated.
" 7. The men on shore will then pull the hawser
taut, and by means of the whip line will haul off to
the ship a sling, cot, or life-buoy, into which the
person to be hauled ashore is to get and be made
fast. When he is in and secure, one of the crew
must be separated from the rest and again signal to
the shore as directed in Article 1 above. The people
on shore will then haul the person in the sling to
the shore, and when he has landed, will haul back
the empty sling to the ship for others. This opera-
tion will be repeated until all persons are hauled
ashore from the shipwrecked vessel.
o. it may sometimes happen that *La state of
the weather and the condition of the ship will not
admit of a hawser being set up, in which case a
sling or life buoy will be hauled off instead, and
the persons to be rescued will be hauled through
the surf instead of along the hawser.
" Masters and crews of shipwrecked vessels should
bear in mind that the success in landing them may,
in a great measure, depend upon their coolness and
attention to the rules here laid down ; and that
by attending to them many lives are annually saved
by the mortar and rocket apparatus on the coasts
of the United Kingdom.
" The system of signaling must be strictly ad-
hered to ; and all women, children, passengers, and
helpless persons should be landed before the crew
of the ship.
" The illustrations will help to explain the man-
ner in which the mortar and rocket lines are used."
What the National Life-boat Institution has for
some years advocated on this important subject has
at length been effectually carried out by the Board
of Trade—an improved and more complete appa-
ratus in use on the coast, and a uniform rule in its
management, both on shore and on shipboard. It
is a great step in advance towards the fulfilment of
our national duty to afford relief to shipwrecked
persons on our coasts, and we progno3ticate the
happiest results as a consequence.

BLACK IMMIGRANTS FOR THE
FRENCH COLONIES.

(From the Sydney Jttorning Herald of Sept. 10.)
The official papers in reference to the alleged
case of kidnapping at the Kingsmill Islands, have
at length been published, and show prima facie a
clear violation in spirit if not in the letter of the
laws against the slave trade. The facts, as they
appear from the published evidence, may be briefly
stated. The Sutton, an old whaler, was chartered
by Mr. Joubert, of Sydney, to proceed to some of
the South Sea Islands, and hire a, number of the
natives to labour for five years in the plantations at
the French colony of Reunion, more generally
known as the Isle of Bourbon. Capt. Wilson was
placed in charge of her, and a Mr. Dalmeyne was sent
as emigration agent. The latter was supposed to be
a Frenc government officer, who was to see fair play
in the making of the contracts ; but he was prac-
tically the nominee and deputy of the charterer,
by whom he was paid. At the Kingsmill Islands
—a group inhabited by the most barbarous of the
Polynesian tribes—two white settlers, an Ameri-
can and an Englishman—were taken on board, and
through their instrnmentnlity a number of islanders
were induced to hire themselves for a few months
to make cocoa oil at some island not named. The
white men and their boat's crew were to- be taken
back. But, the weather proving adverse, the
whole party were carried on in the Sutton to
Reunion, and Captain Wilson, after some pressure,
paid the expenses home of the white men and
their native follbwers. But the rest of the
islanders were all sold off to "the planters as the
bondsmen of the latter for the next five years,
having been induced, at an early stage during
the.passage, to go through the farce of affixing
their signatures to agreements for this servitude.
Many of the entrapped islanders seem to have taken
the matter pretty easy, but others suffered dread-
fully when they ascertained what was to become of
them. The evidence of these facts does not rest
solely upon the statements of the white interpre-
ters, but upon those of many of the crew. Some of
the latter are evidently most favourably disposed
towards the captain, and seem to think this species
of enterprise permissible, yet their testimony still
goes to make out the charge of kidnapping, and no
effort seems to have been made to rebut that
charge. It is to be hoped that some strong remon-
strances upon thiS subject will be addressed to the
Imperial Government of France. To say nothing
of the fraud which is thus committed against a body
of unprotected and ignorant savages, there is a
great proximate danger attending these transac-
tions. When the Kingsmill islanders learn how
their countrymen have been cheated into slavery,
they will entertain a strong desire to avenge them
on the white traders indiscriminately. They will
probably gratify their desire by cutting off
the crews of small vessels touching there.
The innocent will suffer for the guilty. Many of
the deeds of violence committed by Polynesians are
to be traced to previous outrages by white men.

DRINKING FOUNTAIN ON HOLBORN-HILL.—At
a vestry meeting of the parish of St. Andrew, Holborn,
held in the Vestry-room, St. Andrew's-court, on Tuesday,
S. Gurney, Esq., Lombard-streat, made, through Mr.
Potter, an offer to erect at his own cost a drinking foun-
tain, to be placed on Holborn-hill; it was unanimously
resolved to accept the offer; the.rector and,churchwardens
being requested to fig the site.