It would naturally be imagined that the wrecks and collisions that occur on our own coasts formed only an insignificant portion of the casualties that take place throughout the world. But this is not so. The trade of the world is drawn towards our shores, and these shores are washed by narrow and therefore dangerous seas. Hence we can account for a fact which would otherwise appear astounding, that the losses on our own coasts form nearly a third of the losses throughout the world. According to the returns of Lloyd’s agents, the average annual number of casualties and of vessels that have touched the ground within the last four years in all seas is 3,254; whilst, as we have already stated, those that occur upon our coast average 1,025. Long as the list of home disasters is, it is at least satisfactory to find that the more severe cases are not increasing. The official record of these casualties does not extend back farther than the year 1852, but the annual returns since that date, which we append, are on the whole encouraging.

1852.1853.1854.1855.1856.1857.
Wrecks958759893894837866
Collisions577394247316277
Total1015832987114111531143

From this Table it will be seen that while there is an absolute decrease with respect to wrecks, which is due, no doubt, to the greater intelligence of the masters and the working of the Mercantile Marine Act, a large and increasing number of collisions has happened. The latter circumstance is important, and in all probability is attributable to two causes, the vast addition that has taken place of late years to the trade of the country, and the manner in which steam is supplanting the use of sails. If we cast back our glance only fifteen years, and compare the trade of that period with what it is at present, we are astonished at the rate at which our commerce has advanced. We find it stated in the statistical abstract of the year 1858, that the amount of British shipping which entered and cleared from the ports of the United Kingdom in 1843 was 7,181,179 tons, and of foreign 2,643,383 tons, making together an aggregate tonnage of 9,824,562 tons. In 1857, however, the tonnage of British shipping entered and cleared had increased to 13,694,107, and the foreign shipping to 9,484,685 tons, making an aggregate quantity of no less than 23,178,792 tons; thus showing an increase of 13,354,230 tons, or 136 per cent., in fourteen years! With this prodigious addition to the ships passing our shores, we have reason to be thankful that wrecks are not of far more frequent occurrence, and it will account for the otherwise alarming multiplication of the number of collisions. And not only are there more ships, but a greater proportion of them are propelled by steam. A parliamentary paper, not long since published, shows that the number of steamers employed in the Home and Foreign trade has increased from 414 in 1849 to 899 in 1857; that is, the number of vessels most prone to come into collision has more than doubled within the last eight years, and while the sailing vessels have increased during this period only 3·49 per cent., the latter have increased 117·15 per cent., the proportion of steamers to sailing vessels having advanced from 2·22 per cent. in 1849 to 4·87 per cent. in 1857. Bearing in mind the speed at which steamers go, and the manner in which their powerful lights, just introduced, simulate those of lighthouses and lightships, the increase of collisions is not surprising. There can be no doubt that the introduction of coloured side-lights, which all vessels, both sailing and steamers, must henceforward exhibit, will enable the direction in which another ship is standing to be distinguished, which was not the case heretofore.

The most important object after the prevention of shipwreck is that of rescuing the crew when the catastrophe takes place. All along the coast—grouped thicker together where the fatal black dots indicate dangerous spots—we find rude marks indicative of the presence of life-boats. Thus, whenever the dangerous headland or the hidden shoal threatens destruction to the mariner, the means of preservation are close at hand. Of these boats, each manned by a fearless crew of twelve volunteers, there are 141 stationed along the coast; seventy being under the management of the National Life-Boat Institution, and seventy-one under the direction of various corporations and local authorities. To the princely conduct of the Duke of Northumberland, the President of the National Life-Boat Institution, we owe the present improved condition of the means of saving life in cases of shipwreck. As far back as the year 1790, two humble boatbuilders on the banks of the Tyne, Greathead and Wouldhave (who were encouraged and fostered by the then Duke of Northumberland), invented the broad, curved form of life-boat, with air-cases, which was chiefly in use around our coasts. This model was afterwards much departed from, and by degrees the most imperfect boats (provided they were lined with what were supposed to be air-tight cases) were dignified with the name of life-boats. The many casualties that happened to these craft, which were built by rule of thumb rather than upon any scientific system, brought them into much disrepute. Too often, indeed, their hardy crews, instead of fulfilling their mission, were drowned on the way. In some instances, owing to their defective build, they turned end over end when struck by a heavy sea, and, from want of the power to right themselves when capsized, the unfortunate men were encaged beneath them. To prevent the recurrence of such disastrous accidents, the Duke of Northumberland offered a premium for the production of a model life-boat, and the result was the exhibition of several respectable contrivances. Not one of them, however, fulfilled all the prescribed conditions; nor was it until after several trials and many experiments that the present life-boat was completed. It appears to be the production of a committee and not of an individual; but the chief credit of it is due to Mr. Peake, of the Royal Dockyard, Woolwich; to Joseph Prowse, junior, foreman of the same yard; and to Messrs. Forrestt, the well-known boat-builders of Limehouse. It has been adopted by the Life-Boat Institution, and has stood the test of some years’ experience without a single failure. In a trial lately made at Boulogne, the boat was twice purposely capsized by the help of a crane, and righted herself in two seconds, and in less than fifteen seconds the water with which she was filled disappeared through her self-acting valves. Of the entire number of 1668 seamen saved during the last year, 399 owed their lives to these boats, and we have no doubt that in future years they will prove still more effective, if only well handled and not rashly sailed by inexperienced men; for no life-boat can be devised that will not be liable to accidents if entrusted to careless or unskilful hands.

But there is another point almost equally important that seems to have been greatly overlooked, the worthlessness of the so-called life-boats that every emigrant ship, every transport, every passenger vessel, is by Act of Parliament required to carry. We have no hesitation in pronouncing them to be in most cases a mockery, a delusion, and a snare. It is not long since that we heard from the lips of one of the most extensive boat-builders on the banks of the Thames, that, when a boat was condemned as unseaworthy for any other purpose, it was a common practice to patch it up, add a certain amount of air-case, and dispose of it as a life-boat. We know not with whom it rests to see the Act enforced, whether with the Board of Trade or the Life-boat Association, but the fact of its evasion is notorious, and a heavy responsibility rests somewhere. Even when the crazy thing is embarked, it is often so stowed that it cannot be lowered in case of need without long delay, and is frequently deficient in sails, oars, thole-pins, plugs, and always without an efficient compass. Yet in this ill-equipped boat the lives of thirty, forty, perhaps fifty, of our too confiding countrymen are risked. It would be easy to see, before the vessel sailed, that the life-boat was efficient; that a certain supply of provisions and fresh water was placed in proper cases; that the mast, sails, oars, and thole-pins were secured into the boat, and that an efficient boat-compass was provided, instead of the ridiculous toy that goes by that name, the card of which spins round like a top at every stroke of the oars. The beautiful spirit or liquid boat-compass of Dent may be purchased for less than £5. A life-boat thus furnished would give confidence to the passengers, would serve them well in time of need, and would be no more than the legislature is entitled to require under the provisions of the Act. Anything less is a gross imposition upon the simple emigrants, who embark in confidence, believing that everything has been done for their safety.

In addition to the life-boat system we have located in most of the coast-guard stations rocket and mortar apparatus to enable a connection to be established with stranded vessels by firing a rope over them. This method was effectual in 243 cases during the last year, and is well worked under the auspices of the Board of Trade. The drawback to the use of the mortar apparatus is its weight, which prevents its being easily transported along the rocky shores where it is chiefly needed, but we understand that Mr. Brown, of the General Register and Record Office of Seamen, has invented a portable apparatus, which will in all probability greatly facilitate our means of communicating with stranded vessels, and tend in no small measure to still further lessen the dismal list of seamen who annually perish on our weather-beaten coast.

LODGING, FOOD, AND DRESS OF SOLDIERS.

If the question had been asked a short time since what body of men presented the most healthy lives in her Majesty’s dominions, the reply might reasonably have been Her Majesty’s Foot-Guards. Recruited, at the age of nineteen, principally from among the agricultural population, submitted to the critical examination of the inspecting surgeon, tried in wind and limb and tested at every point, the would-be soldier must be proved an athlete, or renounce for ever the hope of wearing her Majesty’s uniform. Absorbed into the picked corps of the army; quartered either in metropolitan barracks or within a stone’s-throw of the palace of the Sovereign; clothed, fed, housed, and tended in sickness by the State; and only in the face of great emergencies required to brave the dangers of foreign service; the weak and incapable instantly weeded out from the ranks,—his does indeed seem to be a select life, with which no other among the labouring classes would appear to be comparable. As we see him on parade in all the pomp and panoply of war, we view him with pride as worthy of that noble band that swept irresistibly before it the eagles of France, and, single-handed, at Inkermann, long kept the foe at bay, and saved two armies from destruction. Yet take the unhealthiest trades in England—the pallid tailor, as he sits at his board, or the miner who lives in the bowels of the earth—and it will be found that the percentage of deaths in their ranks is not nearly so great as in those of the magnificent Guards, pipeclayed and polished up to meet the eye of princes, but, alas! often little better than whited sepulchres. Such is the fact elicited by the labours of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the regulations affecting the sanitary condition of the army. If the “most favoured” regiments furnish these disastrous results, it may be imagined that the condition of the rank and file, who take their turn in all climates, must be much worse; but, strange to say, the contrary is the fact. This is shown in the following table, which gives the number per thousand who die every year among the army at home and among the male civilians of England and Wales at army ages:—