“We must say one word on the subject of casualties to our ships in our rivers and harbours, as the fearful calamity to the steamer Princess Alice last September in the Thames has directed afresh intense attention to them throughout the civilised world. We find from the Wreck Register Abstract that the total number during the year 1876-77 was 984, of which 17 were total losses, 245 were serious casualties, and 722 minor casualties.
“Of these casualties, collisions numbered 658, founderings 13, strandings 184, and miscellaneous 129.
“These 984 casualties caused the loss of or damage to 1,725 vessels, of which 1,020 were British sailing-vessels, 560 British steam-vessels, 118 foreign sailing-vessels, and 27 foreign steam-vessels. The lives lost in these casualties were 15.
“With reference to the collisions on and near our coasts during the year 1876-77, 48 of the 847 collisions were between two steamships both under way, irrespective of numerous other such cases in our harbours and rivers, the particulars of which are not given in the Abstract. No disaster at sea or in a river is often more awful in its consequences than a collision, as was too strikingly illustrated last year in the cases of the German ironclad Grosser Kurfürst, and the Thames steamer Princess Alice.
“As regards the loss of life, the Wreck Abstract shows that the number was 776, and of these 92 were lost in vessels that foundered, 57 through vessels in collision, 470 in vessels stranded or cast ashore, and 93 in missing vessels. The remaining number of lives lost (64) were lost from various causes, such as through being washed overboard in heavy seas, explosions, missing vessels, &c.
“This number (776) may appear to the casual observer a comparatively small one by the side of the thousands who escaped disaster from the numerous shipwrecks before mentioned. We are, however, of opinion that it is a very large number; and when we bear in mind the inestimable value of human life, we are convinced that no effort should be left untried which can in any way lessen the annual loss of life from shipwreck on our coasts.
“On the other hand, great and noble work was accomplished during the same period, 4,795 lives having been saved from the various shipwrecks. In bringing about that most important service, it is hardly necessary to say that the craft of the National Life-boat Institution played a most important part, in conjunction with the Board of Trade’s rocket apparatus, which is so efficiently worked by the Coastguard and our Volunteer Brigades.
“Nevertheless, the aggregate loss of life is very large, and so is the aggregate destruction of property. The former is a species of woe inflicted on humanity; the latter is practically a tax upon commerce. While the art of saving life on the coasts is understood (thanks to the progress of science—the earnestness of men—and the stout hearts of our coast population), the art of preserving property is as yet but imperfectly known amongst us, and still more imperfectly practised.
“On reviewing the Wreck Register Abstract of the past year, we are bound to take courage from the many gratifying facts it reveals in regard to saving life, which, after all, is our principal object in commenting upon it. Noble work has been done, and is doing, for that purpose; and is it not something, amidst all this havoc of the sea, to help to save even one life, with all its hopes, and to keep the otherwise desolate home unclouded?”
Among the useful works undertaken by the National Life-boat Institution is the discussion in its journal of all matters connected with the art of swimming, and swimming and floating apparatus. The Society also issues a valuable circular on the “Treatment of the apparently Drowned,” to which further allusion will be hereafter made. The writer is so satisfied that no humane or charitable institution in the wide world is better or more economically managed than that under notice, that he would urge all readers of The Sea to contribute to its funds. And although every reader may not be able to afford his guinea or guineas, he can contribute his shillings or half-crowns, and his influence in aiding one of the local branches, or in forming new ones. A number of life-boats stationed on various parts of the coasts were the gifts of other associations and bodies. The Civil Service, Corn Exchange, Coal Exchange, Freemasons, Odd Fellows, Foresters, Good Templars, and other orders, have contributed nobly. Several boats and stations, generally named after the particular fund, were contributed by London and other Sunday-schools, Jewish scholars, commercial travellers, workmen, yacht, boat, and other clubs; while three were the result of an appeal to the readers of the Quiver, two are credited to the Dundee People’s Journal, and one each to the British Workman and English Mechanic. And in concluding the second volume of The Sea, the writer considers that he has a special right to urge the claims of the Society on his readers, the subject-matter of its pages being taken into account.