The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-05 00:00:00

Royal National Lifeboat, Institution.

Yesterday a meeting of this institution was held
at its house, John-street, Adelphi ; Mr. T. Chap-
man,
F.R.S., V.P., in the chair. The minutes of
the previous meeting having been read, a reward of
£6 10a. was granted to the crew of the institution's
lifeboat, the Isis, at Ilayle, for going off in a strong
gale of wind and heavy ground sea, on the 10th
ult., and rescuing the crew of eight men of the bri-
gantine Columbia, of Carnarvon, which was in a
very dangerous position near the rocks in Porthdin-
laen Bay, having parted from one anchor. A re-
ward of £7 was likewise granted to the crew of the
Blakeney lifeboat for ,being instrumental in bring-
ing safely into harbour a pilot coble and her crew
of three men during a strong wind on August 12.
Rewards amounting to £34 were also voted to pay
the expenses of the lifeboats of the institution sta-
tioned at Blackpool, Lytham, Shoreham, and North
Deal, for various services during the past month.
The thanks of the institution inscribed on vellum
were ordered to be given to Mr. Gawler, R.N., in-
specting officer of the coastguard at Ballyheige,
county Kerry, and £1 each to three of his men, in
acknowledgment of their services in wading into the
surf with life lines round them, and effecting a com-
munication with the barque Mary Anne, of Lon-
don, which had gone ashore during a strong gale
and heavy sea on the 11th ult. By these means 12
out of 14 of the crew of the vessel were rescued.
A reward of £2 10s. was also granted to some men
who assisted the coast-guardsmen in hauling the
shipwrecked crew ashore on the occasion. Various
other rewards were voted to the crews of shore boats
for saving life from shipwreck. It was reported
that the inhabitants of Bristol and Clifton had,
through Miss Hill, Mr. E. Austin, Mr. Hancock,
and gentlemen belonging to the Bristol Histrionic
Club, contribitted to the institution the cost of a
new lifeboat, to be stationed at Lossiemouth, North
Britain. Mr. Robert Taylor Ileape of Rochdale,
had also collected £425 from among the residents of
that town to defray the expenses of a lifeboat to be
stationed at Polkerris, near Fowey, Cornwall. A
contribution of £360 had also been received from
E. P. S. to pay the cost of a new lifeboat for Bar-
mouth. Miss Hamill, of Kingstown, had also for-
warded to the institution a donation of £5O by di-
rection of her brother, the late James Hamill, Esq,
The institution had during the past month for-
warded new lifeboats to Queenstown, Poolbeg, and
Brixham ; the railway and steam paeket companies
kindly gave them a free conveyance to their desti-
nations. The Poolbeg lifeboat, the G. V. Brooke,
was exhibited on the Adelphi-terrace, Loudon, be-
fore being sent to her station, and was publicly
launched at Dublin on the 20th ult. The City of
Exeter lifeboat for Brixham was also taken to Exeter
on the way to her station, when a grand demonstra-
tion took place with her. The London Sunday
Schools' lifeboat was also publicly presented to the
institution on the 25th ult. at the Agricultural-hall,
Islington, in the presence of upwards of 24,000 of
Sunday-school children. Payments amounting to
£3,250 were ordered to be made on various lifeboat
establishments. It was reported that the society
was now collecting estimates from different places
for the construction of some safety fishing boats.
These boats are intended to become practical speci-
mens of what may be termed, life-saving fishing-
boats, and it is hoped that after sufficient trial other
boats on this model may be built by fishermen on
various parts of the coast of the United Kingdom.
Thus a permanent improvement would be estab-
lished which might lead to the saving of many lives
on occasions of such boats being overtaken by gales
of wind when pursuing their avocations at long dis-
tance's from land. A working drawing of a new
lifeboat built at Port Adelaide, South Australia, on
the plan of the institution, was brought under the
notice of the meeting by the marine board of that
place. Reports were read from the inspector and
the assistant-inspector of lifeboats of the institution,
on their recent visits to different lifeboat stations on
terminated. d.Ennagtleish and Irish coasts. The proceedings then

LIGHT AND DARK BLUE.—In Friar Bacon's days,
when the Cambridge men brought a challenge to
Oxford, it was to a public disputation in Latin verse, a
phoairudtlyuspoonstrwohng as which his fellow
might have been ; for Bacon, as the
old story goes, only filched fellow Oxonians seem to have been
the victory from the challengers
by a ruse. Mounting a ladder in the disguise of a thatcher,
he saluted them on their entrance into the town in such
fluent verse that they hurried back straight to Cambridge as
they came, having at least logic enough to draw an argu-
ment a minore—what wonderful versifiers the Oxford gowns-
men must be if even their thatchers had caught the trick.
So when, some centuries afterwards, two Oxford students
rode forth on a similar errand (" having much learning in their
heads,"says the Cambridge chronicler, "but needing to have
brought more in their portmanteaus") they challenged all
comers in the Cambridge schools to thediscussion of certain
questions, not very practical, perhaps—for one of them was
whether a woman who had twice escaped hanging by the
breaking of the rope ought to be hung a third time—but
still in Latin, as became the dignity of scholars. Like Nel-
son, these young champions engaged without orders from
headquarters; and not having Nelson's justification of suc-
cess, their university is said to have expelled them osten-
sibly for their presumption, but really, no doubt, for their
bad logic. But modern contests between these academic
rivals are of a totally different kind. If a party of chal-
lengers arrives at the gate of the sister university now,
whatever else their portmanteaus may be likely to contain
it is certainly not learning. Their moderate stock of that
article is kept for home consumption. Instead of quodlibets
and qucestiones, which they would not know what to make
of if they had them, they bring out of their travelling stores
new inventions of academic warfare, instruments of offence
and defence, which their college forefathers would be
equally puzzled to handle; clubs of strange shape and cun-
ning workmanship, and body armour of pads and ,
or they make their appearance something in the
classical guise of an old Athenian war crew, each man with
his oar and cushion. The battle grounds on which the
light and dark blue now meet are the river, the cricket
field, and the billiard-room. To these, of late years, has
been added a sort of modern Olympic festival, known
as the Inter-University Athletics held alternately at
Oxford and Cambridge, at which the recognised
quadrivium is running, leaping,
throwing the cricket
ball, and throwing the hammer. There can be no
question that the interest excited by these contests has
become, to the vast majority of the undergraduates, the
great interests of the academical year, and the successul
champions are far greater heroes in the eyes of their fel-
lows than the most brilliant "double first." Evan grave
tutors may baseen crowding against the ropes, moved out
of their usual propriety, to see whether Smith of their own
college can beat the champions of the rival university,
who had it all their own way in the two-mile race last
ye
ieoaurs;
na
on
tdi
clot e
oa
fd s
ao fycolleges
hhoa vheabs e ewn
oknnoo
nwen
ot
fo tt ahke eg r
greata-
"events," though we have not yet heard of any rash aspi-
rant having been expelled for failure. —Blackwood.
Amongst the curiosities now exhibited at the fair
of St. Michel, at Havre, is a Prussian, who, with
the spike helmet (pickelhaubc) ou his head, demon-
strates to the curious the manoeuvres of the famous
needle-gun, for the small charge of one penny. The
crowd is always excessive, and the showman is
making a little fortune.