THE PRESERVATION OF LIFE FROM SHIPWRECK.

It is a difficult matter to reconcile with the sympathy, which it is well-known the sufferings of the unfortunate always receive in England, the apparent apathy which exists among the public, on a subject so important as the preservation of Life from Shipwreck. Several pleas in extenuation have been urged by those most interested. In the first place, there is that natural hardihood and contempt of danger in the English sailor, which it is, occasionally, impossible to tame down to anything 453like prudence and forethought. This indomitable spirit of emulation and daring, is found to be the greatest enemy to the adoption of any of those appliances which science has rendered available. The Deal boatman trusts his life in precisely the same sort of craft that his father, and his father’s father, did before him. Confident in, and proud of, the skill which he has inherited from them, he scorns to tarnish, as he falsely reasons, his name by the habitual use of buoy or belt, lest those of his comrades who are firmly entrenched behind their ancient prejudices, should set him down as faint-hearted, and unworthy the honourable name of a “Deal boatman.”

The still more inaccessible Scotch fisherman, with his four thousand piscatory brethren, “shoots his nets” on the exposed coast of Caithness, in the open boat used by his ancestors, notwithstanding the evil consequences which have often ensued. The latest example of the ill effects of this tenacity of opinion occurred two years since, when a fearful gale, which did more or less damage along the whole eastern face of England and Scotland, wrecked and damaged a hundred and twenty-four of their boats, drowned a hundred men, and occasioned a loss to the fishing community of above seven thousand pounds, which, although a large sum, will not bear any comparison with the misery and destitution thus entailed upon the widows and orphans of the lost.

It is impossible to say how many of these unfortunate men might have been saved, had they had proper harbours to run for, with lights and beacons to warn, and life-boats to afford assistance; proper boats to keep the sea, and buoys and belts, as a last resource; but surely we are warranted in thinking that fully one half would have been left among us.

In both these examples, it must be acknowledged that it would be a useless effort to attempt any sudden innovations on these deeply-seated prejudices; the only thing that can be done, in either case, is to let the new principle quietly work of itself. Let us find a life-belt for the Deal boatman, which he can wear and work in, until in it he recognises his best friend; let the Scotch fisherman have ocular demonstration that the “model” boat prosecutes the fishery with equal success, and far greater safety and comfort in bad weather, and we shall soon have a different system of things.

In the course of each year an average of something like six hundred ship disasters occur on the shores of this kingdom alone,—some wrecked through stress of weather; some by carelessness, and other disgraceful causes; some through mistaking lights, or having been lured to destruction by useless ones; some through actual rottenness of timber; some dashed to pieces on the very rock for which they were anxiously looking half a mile further a-head, where it ought to have been, according to the chart; and some from other causes, more or less easily averted. These losses are attended by the almost incredible destruction of a thousand lives, and the value of tens of thousands of pounds sterling.

The shocking wreck of the Orion—not, we say with sorrow, the last occurrence of the kind—startled, for a moment, the public from their culpable apathy. But the shock passed away; and attention to this subject is gradually subsiding into the usual indifference. The details of this catastrophe ought to have had a more permanent effect on the public mind. In the moment of danger, the gear of the boats was so imperfect, that these could only be released from their davits by capsizing their human cargoes into the deep. Even when they righted, they immediately filled, for the plug-holes were actually unstopped. The most ordinary precautions for saving life were not at hand, as precautions. The hen-coops, barrels, seats, combings, and other means of escape, by which many were saved, were purely accidental life-preservers.

Every English ship, before leaving port, should be submitted to a supervising power similar to the inspection that emigrant ships undergo, in order that it should be certified that means, both simple and efficacious, for the safety of the passengers and crew, exist on board—boats, belts, mattresses, rafts; everything, in short, that can add to the security of those about to “go down to the sea in ships.”

That this sort of supervision is effectual, is proved by the few disasters which happen to the vessels of the Royal Navy. In these ships, everything is not only kept in its proper place, to be ready when wanted, but each man is constantly exercised in what he is to do with it when no danger is apprehended, that he may be in a state of prompt efficiency when it is. The Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean squadron can step on board any one of his ships in the middle of the night; and although three-fourths of its crew are asleep in their hammocks, he can, by ordering the “beat to quarters,” make sure of every man being at his post in seven minutes, ready for action or for any sudden disaster. This sort of discipline it is which is so much required in the merchant navy. In case of a ship striking, a dozen men rush to do one thing,—perhaps to release a boat from one of her davits,—and, consequently, swamp the boat, by leaving the stern rope untouched. Captain Basil Hall, in his “Fragments of Voyages and Travels,” describes the vigilant precaution daily made even against the loss of one life. To each life-buoy there is as regular a “service” as to any other part or apparatus of the ship. He says:—

“On the top of the mast is fixed a port-fire, calculated to burn, I think, twenty minutes 454or half-an-hour; this is ignited most ingeniously by the same process which lets the buoy down into the water. So that a man falling overboard at night, is directed to the buoy by the blaze on the top of its pole or mast, and the boat sent to rescue him also knows in what direction to pull. Even supposing, however, the man not to have gained the life-buoy, it is clear that, if above the surface at all, he must be somewhere in that neighbourhood; and if he shall have gone down, it is still some satisfaction, by recovering the buoy, to ascertain that the poor wretch is not left to perish by inches. The method by which this excellent invention is attached to the ship, and dropped into the water in a single instant, is perhaps not the least ingenious part of the contrivance. The buoy is generally fixed amidships over the stern, where it is held securely in its place by being strung, or threaded, as it were, on two strong perpendicular iron rods fixed to the taffrail, and inserted in holes piercing the framework of the buoy. The apparatus is kept in its place by what is called a slip-stopper, a sort of catch-bolt or detent, which can be unlocked at pleasure, by merely pulling a trigger. Upon withdrawing the stopper, the whole machine slips along the rods, and falls at once into the ship’s wake. The trigger which unlocks the slip-stopper is furnished with a lanyard, passing through a hole in the stern, and having at its inner end a large knob, marked ‘Life-Buoy;’ this alone is used in the day-time. Close at hand is another wooden knob, marked ‘Lock,’ fastened to the end of a line fixed to the trigger of a gun-lock primed with powder: and so arranged, that when the line is pulled, the port-fire is instantly ignited, while, at the same moment, the life-buoy descends, and floats merrily away, blazing like a lighthouse. It would surely be an improvement to have both these operations always performed simultaneously, that is, by one pull of the string. The port-fire would thus be lighted in every case of letting go the buoy; and I suspect the smoke in the day-time would often be as useful in guiding the boat, as the blaze always is at night. The gunner who has charge of the life-buoy lock sees it freshly and carefully primed every evening at quarters, of which he makes a report to the captain. In the morning the priming is taken out, and the lock uncocked. During the night a man is always stationed at this part of the ship, and every half-hour, when the bell strikes, he calls out ‘Life-buoy!’ to show that he is awake and at his post, exactly in the same manner as the lookout-men abaft, on the beam, and forward, call out ‘Starboard quarter!’ ‘Starboard gangway!’ ‘Starboard bow!’ and so on, completely round the ship, to prove that they are not napping.”

We should like to hear of Government experimenting with rockets and mortars, with a view to their improvement. Often the safety of a whole ship’s company has depended upon the strength of a light cord, attached to a rocket, which has been lying in store for years; often it has happened that this very cord has been just a few feet too short! or has snapped, or has got entangled, or something else equally simple, but equally fatal. Let us look also to our quasi life-boats, some so heavy that they cannot be launched, or so dangerous as to drown their own crews—some constructed one way, some another—none on any recognised and universal principle. We are very proud of our name of Englishmen, and lay the flattering unction to our soul, that we are a highly civilised and reasonable community; but whilst we grow magniloquent in praises of our country and her commerce, we forget that we owe it all to the poor Jack Tar, for whose life and comfort we don’t seem to care a fig. Else why have these inquiries not been before instituted? What is the use of our Trinity Boards, and Ballast Boards, and Lighthouse Boards, and all other Boards, if the seaman is not to know one light from another when he sees it, or if it is to be placed so that he cannot see it? What is the use of our keeping up a Hydrographic department, at an expense little short of thirty thousand a-year, if the surveys, and charts, and valuable data, the result of its labours, are to be so little appreciated? The truth is, that the masters of many of the mercantile marine are incapable of taking advantage of them, and of other improvements in nautical science, from incompetence. We trust, however, that the bill intended to remedy that defect, lately introduced by the Ministry into the House of Commons, will, if passed, have the desired object. Although it has been abandoned “at this late period of the session” out of respect to the approaching 12th of August and 1st of September, we trust it will be taken up again soon after the next meeting of Parliament.