The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1875-06-11
From the chicago Tribune.

lrlohl thS NhANtbO lllDuLtsI
-Preservers at Sea.
Every person who starts upon an ocean
voyage may set out with the conviction
that life.preservers, under the present sys
tom of using them, are utterly useless.
The reason of this is plain enough to every
body who has been at sea. Disasters oc-
cur at night or in dense fog, or a tower
ing 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 iceberg, and the shock
is like that of an earthquake or an expio-
sion-sudden, unexpected, and terrifying.
The result is panic. The seliahness of
human nature is developed in all its inten
slty the instinct of self-preservation as.
serts itself over every idea of duty. Men
lose Il cir heads and women their hearts.
and there is a rush and scramble without
thought or reason. The sailors are the
first at the lifeboats. They frequently
dump them over wrong end first, and two
or three boats are lost before one is fairly
af1oat. Two or three more are usually
swamped by overcrowding. The sailors
get off with one, and the great majorty of
the passengers are left to the untender mer-
cies of a sinking ship in surrounding dark
ness, Invested of every lfe-saving apparatus
with which the vessel was provided, and
without courage or experience. This is a
fair picture of the scene.
Now where have the life-preservers been
all this time? Swinging quietly from their
fastenings over the buuss below, unthought
of until they were beyond the reach of The
sln ha.l laf thA,1 l..I,
This is the reason why life-preservers are
practically useless They are invariably
placed in location where they are beyond
reach at the time they are thought of.
When the stock of the disaster comes ii is
the irresistible impulse of every man and
woman in the cabin to rush upon deck. to
reach the highest point in the ship. This
impulse to rush up is as strong on ship
board in time Of accident as is the impulse
to rush out of theatre or 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 panicstricken crowd be-
gins to appreciate the small chance of es-
cape 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 lfe-preserver
and thus, with the means of saving life al
most at hand hundred souls or more are
lost
The remedy for this is clearly a change
of the location of life preservers, and the
most natural, convenient, and available
place for them is in the life boats. All the
Transatlantic steamers are provided with
at least eight large life boats, four swung
on either side of the vessel, and each ca
pable of holding from thirty to forty per-
sons. The first movement of the sailors,
for whom no life-preservers are provided
is toward these boats. If each one of the
boats contained life preservers in a num-
Der about one-third greater than their car
rying capacity. the officers and crew would
first provide themselves. From that mo-
ment they would be cooler men. There
would no longer be the insane desire TO
launch and fill the boats that there was be-
fore. Men would do their duty in de-
liberate and systematic manner They
would feel, with the e-preservers about
their bodies, that they had chance to live,
and they would be in a condition to loosen
the boats and ship them so they would float,
They would have the life. preservers Mt 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-boa ought also to have from six
to eight tarpaulin buckets attached 10 it by
chains for bailing out the water, for more
boats are swamped for the lack of these
simple accomplishments than anything
e,sa.
The success of Paul Boynton's life-pre-
serving dress warrants the hope that the
means for saving lite at sea have been inn
measurably improved. Mr.. Boynton has
crossed the British Channel from Cape
Grisnez to Folkestone in the rough sea,
without any assistance, in the simple dress
of Inda-rubber which may be inflated by
the wearer. lie was anoat ON the water
for twenty three hours, and showed but few
signs of fatigue after reaching shore. The
dress is exceedingly simple, and easily ad-
justed, and if further experiment by per-
sons unskilled in the art of swimming shall
demonstrate its merits, every ocean steam
ship ought to be supplied at once with at
least as many OF these dresses as the num-
Der of passengers the steamer carries. But
let them not be suspended over the hunks
in the cabin where not one in hundred
are ever reached when they are needed,
but fastened loosely in the life boats, to
which all men turn when the disaster comes.
1t is unreasonable and outrageous that ev-
cry steamer which strikes q rock within a
few hundred feet or yards of shore should
lose all, or very nearly all, the passengers
on board and we believe the simple change
we have suggested will supply the def
cheney. Let the life-prese,vers be of the
best, let there be an ample supply of them,
and let them be placed in the life-boats,
where they will be at hand when they are