Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1875-06-26
Life-Preseryers at Sea.

Every person who starts upon an ocean
voyage, says the Chicago Tribune, may
set out with the conviction that life
prcservers, under the present system of
using them, are utterly useless. The
reason of this is plain enough to every
body who has been at sea. Disasters
occur at night, or in dense fog, or a
towering storm-very rarely in the light
of day. There is usually no warning.
The ship strikes the rock, or comes in
collision with another vessel or an ice
berg, and the shock is like that of an
earthquake or an explosion-sudden,
unexpected, and terrifying. The result
is q panic. The selfshness of human
nature is developed in all its intensity;
the instinct of self-preservation asserts
itself over every idea of duty. Men lose
their heads and women their hearts, and
there is a rush and scramble without
tht ught or reason. The sailors are the
first at the Gfe-boats. They frequently
dump them over wrong end first, and
two or three boats are lost before one is
fairly ahoat. Two or three more are
usually swamped by overcrowding. The
sailors get off with one, and the great
majority of the passengers are left to
the untender mercies of a sinking ship
in surrounding darkness, divested of
every life saving apparatus with which
the vessel was provided, and without
courage or experience. This is fair
picture of the scene.
Now where have the life-preservers
been all this time9 Swinging quietly
from their fastepings over the hunks be-
low, tlnthought of until they were be-
yond the reach of the unfortunates who
had left them behind. This is thereason
why hfe-preservers are practically use
less. They are invariably placed in q
location where they are beyond reach at
the time they are thought of. When
the shock of the disaster comes it is the
irresistible impulse of every man and
woman in the cabin to rush upon deck,
to reach the highest poiut in the ship.
This impulse to rush up is as strong on
shipboard in time of accident as is the
impulse to rush out of q theater OF
church in time OF fire. No one pauses
for anything, and last of all for life
preserver. The life-preserver is not
thought of until the deck is reached and
the panic stricken crowd begins to ap-
preciate the small chance of escape by
boats. 1t is then too late to seek the
cabin. The hold is probably full OF
water, and no one dares to return to
grope about in dark and narrow passages
in the rising water in search of q Life
preserver; and thas, with the means ol
saving life almost at hand, hundred
souls or more are lost.
The remedy for this is clearly change
of the location of life-preservers, and
the most natural, convenient, and availa-
BILE place for them is in the life-boats.
All the transatlantic steamers are pro-
vided with at least eight large life-boats,
four swung on either side of the vessel,
and each capable of holding from thirty
to forty persons. The first movement
of the sailors, for whom no hfe-preserv-
ers are provided, is toward these boats.
If each one of the boats contained life
preservers in q number about one-third
greater than their carrying capacity, the
officers and crew would first provide
themselves. From that moment they
would be cooler men,. There would nc
longer be the insane desire to launch
and fill the boats that there was before
Men would do their duty in deliberate
and systematic manner. They would
feel, witt. the hfe-preservers about theil
bodies, that they had chance to live,
and they would be in n condition tc
loosen the boats and ship them so they
would float. They would have the life
preservers at hand to deal out to the
frightened passengers, and ten lives
would be saved where one is saved now
In addition to these changes, every life
boat ought also to have from six tC
eight tarpaulin buckets attached to i
by chains for bailing out the water, fol
more boats arc swamped for the lack o
these simple accompaniments than any
thing else.