The St. Johns herald., 1894-11-08
LIFE-SAVING SERVICE.
How Our Sea Coasts Are Pro-
 vided with Rescuers.
Thousands of Shipwrecked Persons Saved from Drowning By the Hardy Men Who Are Ever on
 the Watch.

! At the late session, says the Youths Companion, congress added two months
 to the yearly term of employment of
 the men in the life-saving service who
 are stationed along the Atlantic and ] gulf coasts; and hereafter the men at
 these stations will be on duty from the 1st of each August to the 1st of the next June, instead Of from September
 to May, as was formerly the case: This step was taken for the reason
 that, as general rule, destructive sea
 storms are not apprehended in summer, in the regions named some of the most
 furious gales occurring in the months
 of May and August. On the New Eng
 land coast, in particular, the August gales" are expected annually and are greatly feared.
 The life-saving service belongs to the treasury department. Its officers and men are nearly all practical sea- men; all are of mature age, and all are picked men, fitted by exceptional physique and by mental and moral qualities for the business of saving lives from vessels wrecked in storms.
 Great care is exercised in choosing them, and the servlce has been kept so free from political influence that no sus, picion of partisanship has ever at tached to it.
 The stations of the service are placed in exposed situations where wrecks are most likely to occur. For this reason they are scattered very unevenly over our coasts.
 In 1893 there were only twelve sta tions on the entire Pacific coast and there were two on the little island of Nantucket. On the Atlantic and Gulf coast there were one hundred and eighty, and there were fifty on the shores of the great lakes; while thereis one on an interior river-at the falls of the Ohio, near Louisville.
 Each station consists of a little house
 where the men live and a boat-house where the surf-boats are kept. The nen are constantly exercised in the handling and launching of these boats. They must patrol the beach for long distances in storms, and they lead any, thing but an idle life.
 Under the new arrangement for ten months of service a year, the surfmen are to receive sixty dollars a month each, and out of this sum they must feed themselves. They lead lives of isolation and often of hardship, and are expected in an emergency to show, and always have shown, the highest quail ties of heroism.
 Since the service was established in 1871, it has rescued from wrecked yes sels more than ten thousand persons, and saved ninety millions of dollars worth of property. All this good is done at an expense to the government of little more than million and quarter dollars 8 year-but an insig- nifcant fraction of the amount which the government yearly pays for appli- ances intended to destroy life in war fare.
 The life-saving service is one of the of the government in the sup port of which all men and parties may without substantial disa- greement. Not only is direct good done by it in the saving of life and but indirect good, of impor- tance in the huilding up of character, by the cultivation of heroism and self sacrifice through the example of the deeds done every year by these brave surfmen.
 The service is still inadequate. Many points on the coasts of our oceans and great lakes are unguarded where wreclls are likely to occur. But in it's present state the life-saving service is a brilliant example to other peoples.