"The beach guardians are no idle promenaders; a march of four or five miles through the soft sea sand is a task at any time-what is it in the fury of a winter storm? The prevalent strong winds which must be encountered in one direction or the other of the beat drive before them rain, snow, hail and sleet, or oftener sharp sand, which cuts the face, until, smarting with pain, the patrol man turns and walks backwards for relief. Such is the force of this natural sand blast, that it soon dulls the glass of the patrol lanterns, and at some of the more exposed stations has made ground glass of the window panes. In a snowstorm the ocean beach is the wildest of pathless deserts, and even by daylight, shut out from prominent landmarks, the foam of the breaking surf alone serves to guide the patrol man on his way. Leaving it, he would wander helplessly among the sand-dunes that crown the beach. When the darkness of night is added, and his lantern, if not extinguished by the gale, but feebly lights his path through the slush of snow and sand, he strays and stumbles into pitfalls and quicksands, to recover his way and accomplish his journey only through his lifelong acquaintance with every foot of the ground. Sometimes failing in this, benumbed with cold and bewildered by his mishaps, he is found by his comrades in the snow, insensible, or perhaps dead."

Another danger, to which not only the patrol men but the stations themselves are exposed on the Atlantic coast, is the tidal wave raised by a tornado, which sometimes overturns a station, and the waters flowing far inland surround the patrol men, who have to be rescued by means of boats.

The life of an American patrol man must be one calling for great courage and endurance, and from the manner in which the crews of the Life-Saving Service carry out their arduous task, there can be no doubt that they are worthy rivals of English lifeboat men, whose noble services are so

familiar to us all, and whose courage and endurance were so severely tried when the Ramsgate men lay in their boat for fourteen hours trying to find the wreck of the Liverpool ship "Indian Chief," on January 6th, 1881, when the cold was so intense, and to the severity of which they were exposed in an open boat for twenty-six hours.

The last report of the Life-Saving Service contains several important recommendations, and it is to be hoped that they will be carried into effect; one of these is that a seventh man should be added to each crew.

This additional man would be of the greatest advantage, by remaining on the beach to assist in launching and beaching the boat; he would lighten the patrol duty, giving each man one night's uninterrupted rest in the week. He could also take charge of the station during the absence of the crew, and have hot food ready for them on their return, which would be a great boon to the men and to any persons they may have rescued.

Another recommendation is the supply of one or more horses to the stations, to assist in hauling the boats or mortar cars, whereby the crews would arrive at the scene of the wreck comparatively fresh, instead of, as at present, in an exhausted state from the labour of hauling.

These two recommendations have been partially carried into effect, but only by restricting expenditure on matters of scarcely less importance.

The stations are not manned during the summer months; the time for employing and discharging the crews varies, but the longest period of service is from September 1st to April 30th inclusive a period of eight months.

The following are the statistics of the services rendered by the department during the year 1880:

Three hundred disasters to vessels occurred within the scope of the operations of the service.

There were one thousand nine hundred and eighty-nine persons on board these vessels, of whom one thousand nine hundred and eighty were saved, nine only being lost; four hundred and forty-nine shipwrecked persons were succoured at the stations, receiving in the aggregate one thousand two hundred and two days' relief. sels lost was sixty-seven.

The total number of ves

The year 1880 is marked by a higher record of casualties than any previous year, and these services were not rendered without loss of life to the service, and the whole of one crew of six men perished by the capsizing of their boat, the keeper alone escaping, although the men wore the admirable life-belts introduced by our Lifeboat Institution. This sad event is another proof of the advantage of the selfrighting boat, as these men would in all probability have been saved if their boat had been of that description, for they were all kept afloat by their jackets, but perished from cold during their long immersion.

The only department of the Life-Saving Service of which I have now to speak is that of the awards of medals.

It is a somewhat significant fact that in a Republican country like the United States, where titles and decorations are not conferred by the Government for public services rendered, no matter how meritorious those services may have been, that the medals awarded for exertions in saving human life should be of unusual magnificence and value. The medals are of the first and second class, the former being of gold and the latter of silver.

Many of you may remember the wreck of the American ship "Ellen Southard" off the mouth of the Mersey, on Sept. 25th, 1875.

On that occasion the lifeboats belonging to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, and the New Brighton lifeboat of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, were both engaged;

the former unfortunately capsized, and three of the lifeboat men, the pilot, and eight of the shipwrecked crew were drowned, the remainder being rescued by the New Brighton boat. The services of our Liverpool lifeboat men were recognised by the United States Government through the Life-Saving Service in the most handsome manner, and the survivors of the crews of the two lifeboats, twenty-seven in number, were each presented with a gold medal of the first class, together with a letter of thanks from the Government of the United States. $200 were also awarded by that Government for the families of each of the three lifeboat men who lost their lives on that occasion.

The total expenditure of the Life-Saving Service for the year 1880 was $435,962 or about £89,889, and in the previous year $363,674 or £74,984.

In order to be able to form some comparison of the work done in the United States and in our own country for the preservation of life on the coast, I may state that the expenditure by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution during 1880 was £37,577, for which amount 271 lifeboats and stations were maintained. £1,800 voted for the support of the widows and families of lifeboat men who had perished in the discharge of their duty, and numerous rewards given for saving life by shore-boats and other means. 577 lives were saved by the lifeboats, 120 by shore-boats, &c., for which awards were granted, and 430 by the rocket apparatus worked by the Coastguard and the Rocket Volunteer Brigades, the cost of which service I have not been able to ascertain.

In conclusion, I only hope that this, I fear, very dry recapitulation of facts and figures may have been the means of impressing upon your minds that we are not the only people who endeavour to rescue those who are exposed to the perils of the deep, and to encourage you to support that noble

institution which in England supplies the place of a Government Life-Saving Service.

I do not wish to discuss the question whether work of this description is better undertaken by a Government department or by a charitable institution. Perhaps the truth is that, like the self-righting lifeboat and the surf-boat, each is specially adapted for particular localities, and in an enormous country like the United States, it would perhaps be impossible for a charitable organisation, depending for its support upon the populous cities, to organise and maintain a series of stations over so large an extent of coast and one so thinly populated. At the same time it behoves us, residents in a small country like this, to remember that, densely populated as it is, there are scores of localities where lifeboats are stationed dependent entirely for their support upon the surplus subscriptions from large cities like Liverpool, and where the local subscriptions are entirely inadequate to support the station; and I trust that Liverpool will always be found one of the largest contributors to that institution which in England supplies the place of a Government Life-Saving Service.