At this time the good people of Glasgow had been smitten with a desire to present a lifeboat to the Institution, and, in order to create an interest in the movement, asked the loan of the Edinburgh boat for exhibition. The boat was sent, and placed on view in a conspicuous part of the city.
Among the thousands who paid it a visit was a lady who took her little boy to see it, and who dropped a contribution into the box, which stood invitingly alongside. That lady was the wife of a sea-captain, who lost his ship on the coast of Wigton, where the Edinburgh boat was stationed, and whose life was saved by that identical boat. And not only so, but the rescue was accomplished on the anniversary of the very day on which his wife had put her contribution into the collecting-box!
Sixteen lives were saved by it at that time, and, not long afterwards, fourteen more people were rescued by it from the insatiable sea; so that the working men of Edinburgh have reason to be thankful for the success which has attended them in their effort to “rescue the perishing.”
Moreover, some time afterwards, the ladies of Edinburgh—smitten with zeal for the cause of suffering humanity, and for the honour of their “own romantic town”—put their pretty, if not lusty, shoulders to the wheel, raised a thousand pounds, and endowed the boat, so that, with God’s blessing, it will remain in all time coming on that exposed coast, ready for action in the good cause.
Chapter Five.
Descent into the Cornish Mines.
From Lighthouses, Lifeboats, and Fire-brigades into the tin and copper mines of Cornwall is a rather violent leap, but by no means an unpleasant one.
In the year 1868 I took this leap when desirous of obtaining material for Deep Down: a Tale of the Cornish Mines.