The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1895-01-04
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
N 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
LIST of each August to the lst 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,
i'm the regions named some of the most
furious gales occurring in the months
If 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 service 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
III exposed situations where wrecks are
most likely to occur. For this reason
they are scattered very unevenly over
our coasts.
In 1903 there were only twelve sta
tons 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 there is
one on an interior river-at the falls of
the Ohio near Louisville.
Each station consists Of little house
where the men live and boat-hOuse
where the surf-bOats are kept The
men are constantly exercised in the
handling and launching of these boats.
They must patrol the beach for long
distances IL storms. and they lead any
thing but I'll idle life.
Under the new arrangement for ten
months Of service year, the surfmen
are to receive sixty dollars month
each. ard cut of this sum they must
feed them selves. 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 hcroism.
$incc the service was established in
iN-
sels more than ten thousand persons,
and saved ninety millions of dollars
worth of property. All this good is
done az an expense to the government
of little more than Il million and a
quarter dollars IL vear-but an insig-
niticant 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
branches of the government in the sup
port of which all men and parties may
cooperate without substantial disa-
grecment. Not only is direct good
done by it in the saving of life and
property. but indirect good, of impor-
lance il the building up of character,
by the cultivation OF heroism and self
sacrifice through the example of the
dccds done every year by these brave
eurimcn.
The service is still inadequate. Many
points on the coasts of our oceans and
great lakes are unguarded where
wrecks arc likely to occur. But in its
present state the life-saving service is
brilliant example to other peoples.