The life savers of Cape Cod

by J. W. Dalton

The district superintendents, inspectors, keepers, and crews, the law says, are to be selected “solely with reference to their fitness and without reference to their political or party affiliations.”

STRANDED CLOSE TO SHORE.

Every time a wreck occurs the keepers are required to make out and forward to the department a wreck report, containing answers to a great number of pertinent questions.

If a life is lost the law requires that a thorough investigation be instituted with a view of ascertaining the circumstances, and whether the fatality was due to any neglect or misconduct on the part of the service. Any misconduct or incompetency at other times is likewise subject to rigid investigation. The results of the investigations into the circumstances of loss of life are fully set out in the annual reports of the service, which the general superintendent is required to make.

Life savers, disabled in the line of duty, are retained upon the payrolls during the continuance of their disability, not to exceed one year, though in certain cases the period may be extended upon recommendation for a greater period, but not more than two years. In case of their death from service or from disease contracted in the line of duty, their widows and children under sixteen years of age are entitled to be paid during a period of two years the same amount that the husband or father would have received.

In addition to saving the lives of the imperiled, an important part of the duty of the life savers is that of saving property. The amount of property saved annually by these guardians of the coast largely exceeds the cost of maintenance of the service. The keepers are authorized and required by law to take charge of and protect all such property until claimed by those legally entitled to receive it, or until otherwise directed by the department as to its disposition. The keepers have the powers of the inspectors of customs and faithfully guard the interests of the government in all dutiable wrecked property.

LIFE SAVERS FLOATING A SCHOONER.

Doubtless the United States Life-Saving Service system appears to be an expensive and elaborate one, but it must be remembered that, putting aside entirely the consideration of the value of human life, which is beyond computation, it saves many times its cost in property alone, and that it fulfils the functions usually allotted to several different agencies. It rescues the shipwrecked by both the principal methods which humane ingenuity has devised for that purpose, and which, in some countries, are practiced separately by two distinct organizations; it furnishes them the subsequent succor which elsewhere would be afforded by shipwrecked mariners’ societies; it guards the lives of persons in peril or of drowning by falling into the water from piers and wharves in the harbors of populous cities, an office usually performed by humane societies; it nightly patrols the dangerous coast for the early discovery of wrecks and the hastening of relief, thus increasing the chances of rescue, and shortening by hours intense physical suffering and the terrible agony of suspense; it places over peculiarly dangerous points upon the rivers and lakes a sentry prepared to send instant relief to those who incautiously or recklessly incur the hazard of capsizing in boats; it conducts to places of safety those imperiled in their homes by the torrents of flood, and conveys food to those imprisoned in their homes by inundation and threatened by famine; it annually saves, unaided, hundreds of stranded vessels, with their cargoes, from total or partial destruction, and assists in saving scores of others; it protects wrecked property after landing from the ravage of the elements and the rapine of plunderers; it extricates vessels unwarily caught in perilous positions; it averts numerous disasters by its flashing signals of warning to vessels standing in danger; it assists the custom service in collecting the revenues of the government; it pickets the coast with a guard, which prevents smuggling, and, in time of war, surprise by hostile forces, which makes the service unlike all other organizations established for similar purposes.