I saw some eddying fragments in the sea, as if a mere cask had been broken. Consternation was in every face. They drew him to my very feet—insensible—dead—beaten to death by the great wave; and his generous heart was stilled forever.”
Such things weighed heavily upon the humanely disposed; and when a century ago Mr. Greathead, who had a great heart, stood at Newcastle-on-Tyne, and saw man after man drop from a great wreck into a raging sea without the possibility of rescue, he set himself to work upon the problem of the life-boat. Noticing that the half of a circular wooden bowl invariably turned concave side upward, when thrown in the water, it occurred to him at once that a boat with a curved instead of straight keel would always right itself. Wouldhave, at the same time was advocating padding the boat heavily with cork: and the first life-boat was constructed from these ideas. A year or two later, a minister in the Orkneys suggested that all boats could be made self-righting by fixing an empty water-tight cask in either end. So the idea of air-chambers developed: and later the curved keel was made of iron, to aid in ballasting the craft: so that the modern life-boat, with curved iron keel, cork padding, air chambers, and tubes to permit water to flow out, cannot be sunk, or made to float bottom up. The men may sometimes be washed out of it, or a side stove in, but the boat will always be found right side up.
Strange as it may appear, though the first life-boat, with its crudities, saved hundreds of lives within a few years, the Government took no steps to institute a general system or life-saving service. To the average American, this seems striking; but governments a century ago were more concerned about the success in war than about the welfare of the masses; they studied destruction of life more than its preservation: and if perchance, some ruler affected peculiar concern for the welfare of “the State,” it was generally the case that the definition of Louis XIV was applicable; “The State—that’s me!”
But Sir William Hillary and Thomas Wilson made earnest appeals to Parliament for the establishment of a national life-saving institution; and Hillary added the more effective argument of many deeds of personal daring in the venturous work. Between 1821-1846, no fewer than one hundred and forty-four wrecks occurred on the Isle of Man, and “one hundred and seventy-two lives were lost; while the destruction of property was estimated at a quarter of a million. In 1825, when the City of Glasgow steamer was stranded in Douglas Bay, Sir William Hillary assisted in saving the lives of sixty-two persons; and in the same year eleven men from the brig Leopard, and nine from the sloop Fancy, which became a total wreck. In 1827-32, Sir William, accompanied by his son, saved many other lives; but his greatest success was on the 20th of November, 1830, when he saved in the life-boat twenty-two men, the whole of the crew of the mail steamer St. George, which became a total wreck on St. Mary’s Rock. On this occasion he was washed overboard among the wreck, with three other persons, and was saved with great difficulty, having had six of his ribs fractured.”
So the British institution arose, small at first, but mighty in its work since. Ten years after, in 1850, it was reorganized, and improved life-boats secured. The importance of the work may be imagined when we record that from 1852 to 1871, the wrecks on British coasts alone averaged one thousand four hundred and forty-six per annum! When we add the work of our own life-saving service, and the service of life-boats in many other lands, we may realize how inestimable is the value of such an institution.
THE LIFE-BOAT AT WORK.