The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-08-30
SAVING LIVES AT THE BEACHES.
nnumerabIe Life Prservsrs Have Been Devised But Alert Men
Are Recognized As The Best

way effect a rescue without much in
convenience TO himself.
Seaside resorts are becoming stricter
in their rules governing ocean bath;
ing. It does not advertise a place IA
vorably to have a number of fatal ac-
cidents. The run1or gets abroad that
the surf is dangerous at that particu-
lar resort and people go elsewhere for
the summer. Consequently the cur
rents and undertow are carefully
measured and their force at certain
places and tides charted out. Rules
are then made forbidding bathers to
go into the water at certain tides or
at particular points.
For a time it was considered i'm
possible for seaside town or corpora
ton to enforce rules governing the
bathing but the courts have upheld
them in several contests where the
laws were intended to preserve life.
If it can be demonstrated that the
beach is dangerous at certain tides,
the town or corporation owning the
beach front has the right to forbid
bathing at such times, and to enforce
the laws to the extent of imprisoning
those who habitualy disregard the
injunctions.
This salutary method has in recent
years saved many lives. The reputa-
tor for saving bathers at certain
beaches has as a result added greatly
to their popularity and attraction.
The inventions and devices for max
ing swimming safe in the surf are
sometimes absurd, but nearly all of
them help to make the general ques-
ton better understood. Life-saving
machinery is not very elaborate. Some
OF the new devices are interesting and
practical at times, but none of them
can be used as substitutes for the pro-
fessional life saver.
There are, for instance, life pre-
servers innumerable. AT one beach the
life lines We're strung with life preserv-
ers floating around like corks on the
water. They We're so numerous that
swimming was somewhat difficult but
1t seemed impossible that anybody
could lose his life there. Yet in the
first season five deaths were reported,
and all within the experimental field
of life preservers. AT the critical mo-
ment the drowning person rarely
clutched anything more substantial
than empty air. and the life preservers
bobbed gracefully and tantalizingly
near. 1t was. decided then that one
alert professional life saver was worth
several acres OF life preservers float
ing in the surf attached to life lines
1t is the lack of human intelligence
that makes the mechanical devices I'M
satisfactory. They are ali right when
operated by some one who understands
their use and does not lose his head at
the critical moment. An automatic
device for swimmers We're tried last
season at Atlantic City. This was a
device for automatic imitation of a rub
Der life preserver. 1t was worn under
the arms and belted there securely,
and it in no wise interfered with a
swimmers motions.
He could disport in the water I'M
hampered, but if a cramp seized him,
or an unexpected current dragged him
out beyond his depth, he only had to
pull a string attached to his collapsible
life preserver. This string was con-
nected with an aluminium box inside
of the life preserve filled with calcium
carbide
By an ingenious mechanism inside
water was instantly released from an
other compartment of the preserver.
and a gas would quickly be generated.
This would initiate the rubber life pre-
server, and in less than a quarter of a
minute the swimmer would find him
self floating securely on the top of the
waves. By this method a child could
float safely on the water until help
reached him from the shore.
Innumerable patents have been taken
out for collapsible life preservers of
this or similar character, and the
beach resorts have time and again
agltated the question of compelling all
swimmers who ventured outside the
lie lines to use them. Such a regula-
ton might in the end greatly lessen
the number of casualties.
Enclosing the bathing area with life
lines supported by f1oting buoys so that
inexperienced bathers could not get be-
yond the danger limit, has been ex-
perimented with at several beaches, 1
and one beach corporation even went
so far as TO sink wire netting so that
divers could not swim under the life
lines. This. however, proved of little
use. for the first storm DESTROYED the
netting, and then somebody lost his
life by getting tangled up in the net
ting below the surface. The result was
a heavy law suit for damages against
the corporation and the life netting was
torn up at once.
Last year efforts were made to intro
duce a novel arrangement by which
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