when their day's work will be ended, are extremely fortunate people, as they would admit if they could be induced to contrast their lot with that of others. The professional man can scarcely ever calculate upon having an evening left free to devote to his own private purposes. The barrister does not earn his guineas simply by making a ten minutes' speech in a court of law, and the journalist or author may deem himself lucky if he can lay aside the pen when evening closes in, and not be compelled to carry his work home. Everybody knows that a doctor is common prey; he may be aroused at any period of the night, and required to hasten from his bed into the foggy streets, in order to prescribe for some one whom he has never seen before. But what are such trials of patience compared with those which, a class of whom we hear very little, are continually obliged to endure? The newspapers contain almost daily a column with some such title as "Disastrous Storm," or "Loss of Life at Sea," and the inhabitants of inland districts may glance down it at the beginning of the winter season, vaguely pitying those who " go down to the sea in ships;" but, after a time, the reports are passed over unread, and events of apparently greater importance absorb the attention. The news of to-day is well nigh forgotten before to-morrow's paper is unfolded. The occurrences that immediately concern ourselves and our own interests exclude from the mind almost every other topic. A cross little sweetheart, a sick wife or child, an unprofitable investment, a misfortune in business, a bad tenant, a disobliging landlord, a printer's devil with a summons for" copy," or a smoky chimney are troubles that affect us individually more closely than the most tragic story we have read in the journal of the day, and we are at once immersed in our own cares and anxieties. Happily, there are many unselfish persons who have the means as well as the opportunity of doing good, and who are habitually compassionate towards those who stand in need of sympathy and aid; but there is a great deal of intense selfishness in the world notwithstanding. There are persons who, from time to time, risk their own lives to save others, and whose very calling it is to undertake this mission, and yet it is found no easy matter to raise sufficient funds wherewith to pay their insignificant wages. The records of the "National Life-Boat Institution" furnish irresistible evidence of this truth, in the inadequate response made to its periodical appeals for help. What a terrible earnestness there is in the perils our mariners undergo; how suggestive is such a statement of the agony of relatives at home! Visions of starvation in open boats, upon the hastily constructed raft, of destitution upon the barren rock, of captivity and death amongst savage tribes of men, haunt the imagination, which seeks relief in the hope, that the misery of the seamen ended when their ships were lost. A catalogue of maritime disasters, may not at first appear to be an interesting document, yet it will be found to possess, in addition to its statistical importthat melancholy but fascinating charm, which unavailing but courageous efforts always inspire in generous minds. We read with peculiar avidity all narratives of losses of ships at sea, from the period when Defoe ance, wrote his "Robinson Crusoe," down to the last "Dreadful Wreck in the English Channel." And it seems that we are not likely to lack a supply of this stimulant for the future. The "National Life-Boat Institution" furnishes us quarterly with a sort of log-book of its proceedings, called after the gallant craft which it launches and supports with such unwearied industry and zeal. To the ordinary reader this register, like one of those azure volumes printed by order of the House of Commons for the information of Parliament, may appear sufficiently dry and bald, all sentiment being sacrificed to statistics, yet no chapter in Dampier, Anson, or Cook, contains a more instructive or interesting tale. The "Wreck Chart of the British Isles for 1861," compiled from the Board of Trade Register, which accompanies it, supplies of itself a world of information, which may well startle the steady landsman who sits over his November fire, and perhaps gives only a casual thought to those who are traversing the world of waters, exposed to casualties which cannot be well conceived by the denizens of cities. Glancing over the ably-drawn up, and elaborately collated statistics of the Board of Trade, as shown in the "Wreck Chart" accompanying the "Life-Boat Journal," published last month, we find the melancholy fact that last year 1,494 shipwrecks occurred on British shores, from which 884 human beings are known to have perished. This number of wrecks in 1861, is in itself startling, but how much more so is it when we find that it exceeds the number during any of the preceding nine years, and that it is by 260 in excess, of the annual average of the last six years, the chart clearly defining the locality, where each casualty occurred, and the number of lives sacrificed by it. The statistics of these disasters are as follow:in 1855, 1.141; 1856, 1,153; 1857, 1,143; 1858, 1,170 ; 1859, 1,416; 1860, 1,379; 1861, 1,494. A natural sequence of the increase of vessels wrecked, is the increase of lives lost. "It is," says our authority, "a continual, if not an ever-increasing one. The drain on our sailors and fishermen goes on year after year, notwithstanding all the benevolent and strenuous efforts made at the present day, to stay the ravage. The sea is dreadfully exacting in its demands; and, season after season, when the equinoctial gales blow, when the winter sets in, or when the summer, as our last one did, yields to the temporary, but powerful influence of storms, our shores are converted into altars, on which the Ocean offers his victims. It is unlikely that we shall ever effectually obtain the mastery over the waves; but even at this moment, we are able to contend successfully with them, in their blind efforts to swallow up life, against our endeavours to save. If, for instance, during 1861, eight hundred and eighty-four people lost their lives on our coasts by shipwreck, yet no less than four thousand six hundred and twenty-four were directly saved from such a fate. The whole number makes up a considerable fleet of seamen-men for whom, perhaps, in moments of national emergency, we would give any money-and many of these were preserved under the most perilous circumstances by the craft of the National Life-Boat Association." The estimated loss on the 1,494 wrecks which occurred on the coasts and in the seas of the United Kingdom, in 1861, is upwards of one million sterling-a damage far overbalanced by the loss of the valuable lives who also perished with the ships. It may be adduced as an illustration of the invaluable services of the Life-Boat Institution, the Board of Trade, and other kindred bodies, that during the past six years alone, 16,119 persons have been saved from shipwrecks by means of the life-boats, the life-preserving apparatus, shore-boats, and other appliances, as the annexed list shows: In 1856, 2,243; 1857, 1,668; 1858, 1,555; 1859, 2,332; 1860, 3,697; 1861, 4,624. Since its formation, the Institution has been instrumental, by its life-boats and other means, in saving 12,680 lives; and having now 179 life-boats, it requires, we need scarcely say, a large annual income to meet the demands upon its priceless services. Of this number of craft, we find there are 137 stationed in England, 20 in Scotland, and 22 in Ireland. The Ballast Corporation of Dublin having requested the Institution to undertake the management of the three life-boat stations of Dublin Bay, viz, at Kingstown, Howth, and Poolbeg, and their request having been acceded to, three new life-boats, with transporting-carriages, have been recently supplied and fully equipped. The Ballast Corporation will contribute £50 annually towards the cost of these establishments, leaving the Institution to collect the remainder of the sum necessary for their efficient maintenance, and for the quarterly exercise of their crews and their coxwains' salaries, from the inhabitants of Dublin. That it is not in the power of man to avert the storm, nor prevent the occurrence of wreck and violent death at sea, we are all aware, but it is our duty, to quote the words of the "Life-Boat Journal," to strive for safety, to continue to wrestle hard with danger, to confine disaster and death within the narrowest limits which human efforts can impose upon them. We are certain that there is no necessity to appeal to our countrymen for an adequate response to the periodical appeals for help of an Institution which is so universal in its practical exercise of benevolence and humanity, that it may be said to have adopted for its motto "For one-for all!" There is another subject in connection with the National Life-Boat Institution, to which we would briefly advert. There are no braver men in the whole kingdom than the crews of their boats; there are none whom the generosity of the public is so slow in reaching. The cause of the latter circumstance is not hard to find. Life-boat men are stationed only on the roughest parts of the coast, and they are so remote as a rule from large towns, as to be almost completely lost sight of. Their most daring achievements—and it is wonderful how daring these men are found no more than a curt acknowledgment in the columns or a provincial paper, until the secretary of the Life-Boat Institution was at the pains to furnish the journals with gratuitous paragraphs and articles, describing any event of interest. Yet many hundreds of lives are saved every year by these crews, and it has been estimated that these lives cost the Institution no greater sum than one pound each! It unfortunately happens, however, that the noble fellows who leave the shore in the midst of storm and darkness, to battle their way through the wild waves to men, women, and children, clinging desperately to a broken wreck, sometimes perish in their hazardous undertaking, and how many besides those in the immediate locality of the catastrophe care to inquire what becomes of the bereaved families? In a country where an enormous amount of money is annually bestowed on charitable institutions, it is strange that such an evil as this should be left uncorrected. It would not be difficult to insure some provision for the families of the life-boat men, who were swallowed up in the grave from which they attempted to rescue others. Their lives, we may be sure, are as precious to their kindred as those they endeavoured to save. The winds of this present November may be fraught with bitter memories to many aching widowed hearts, and many a cheerless home, depending for bare subsistence on the uncertain charity of strangers. Is it right that there should be no effort made to diminish this misery, no interest manifested in the affairs of men, whose adventurous lives are spent in rescuing their fellowcreatures from the jaws of death, and in preventing such scenes as that limned in Charles Kingsley's exquisite ballad of the "Three Fishers ?" "Three fishers went sailing away to the West, Away to the West as the sun went down ; Each thought on the woman who loved him the best, Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower, And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down ; Three corpses lay out on the shining sands, In the morning gleam as the tide went down, And the women are weeping and wringing their hands And good-bye to the bar and its moaning." As concerns the welfare of our fishing craft, coasters, and sea-going vessels, the system of meteorological telegraphy so ingeniously devised by Admiral Fitzroy, and which gives warnings, or cautionary notices of gales of wind, or storms, thus placing them on their guard, or preventing them putting out to sea, has been attended with the most efficacious results. It is a significant fact of the general spread of education, and of the spirit of inquiry at the present day, that no event of any moment at all passes away unnoticed. Even what, at this time of the year, cannot be unexpected, a heavy storm, attracts the public attention far and wide. Storms are not regarded, as in the plenitude of ignorance they once were, as visitations and punishments for the iniquity of man, but they are looked upon as natural phenomena, which, for wise and good purposes, have been designed to accomplish beneficial ends; and if these phenomena are productive of loss of life and property, or injury to mankind, science is properly called on to predict their occurrence, and to devise means of escape or salvation. Science is expected to warn, that the danger may be avoided, and to find efficacious means of help for those who need it, when danger overtakes them. Thus it is, in this busy world of ours, some of the men of science are expected to be watchers and warners, and to look to the safety of the general workers on shore or at sea. As the sentry to the army in the field, so the meteorologist should be to the concourse of sailors on the fickle sea. It is he that should look out afar, and sound the warning in time. Any person who crosses Carlisle-bridge may observe, rising above the roof of the office of the Ballast Board, at the corner of Westmoreland-street, a yard or staff, with a halyard attached. From this tackle are suspended, as warnings to the vessels lying in the Liffey, the storm-signals of Rear-Admiral Fitzroy, adopted by the Board of Trade, and now in use all round the coasts of the United Kingdom, as well as abroad. It would be hardly possible, without the aid of a diagram, to convey anything like a correct impression of the manner in which this apparatus is worked. We may observe, however, that in addition to the staff and halyard, it consists of a drum and a truncated cone. When the meteorological instruments, under the personal supervision of the Admiral in London, foretel important changes of weather, the result is immediately telegraphed to every signal station, and precautionary measures at once taken. Thus, when a gale is anticipated from the northward, the cone, apex upwards, is hoisted half-mast high; for one from the southward an inverted cone is similarly elevated. When it is likely that a succession of gales may be looked for, the drum is suspended at the same altitude, while for dangerous winds, probably at first from the northward, the drum surmounted by a cone, apex upwards, is used, and the exact reverse for winds from the southward. For night signals, lights in triangle or square lanterns are employed instead of the drum and cone. The system of Admiral Fitzroy is still but a tentative experiment, but each month has hitherto added useful facts, and increased our acquaintance with the difficult, though not uncertain, varieties of the subject. Meteorology is in a very early state as a science, and the practical arrangements for rendering it useful are not so wide-spread nor so complete as hereafter, with longer experience, they will be. In some places, because the storm signals have sometimes been displayed without the anticipated bad results following, sailors, misled by their characteristic feelings, have become inclined to slight their warnings. But in this they are not justified, for storms will often take a cyclone course, and leaving untouched certain geographical areas, may sometimes make it seem that the storm signals might have been hoisted in mistake. It does not follow that they should interfere abitrarily with the movements of vessels, and that these are to remain waiting to avoid a gale that, after all, may not happen. All that the cautionary signals imply is the necessity for their being on their guard, and prepared for any emergency, k "For storms are sudden, and waters deep." |