The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

MARINE REVIEW 49 United States Life-Saving Service. When it comes to a question of real ser- vice performed, no de- partment of the gov- ernment can be com- pared to the life-sav- ing service of the United States. What- ever service this de- partment performs is a real service, because it is never extended until there is need for it. It is a service done always at great hazard, always involving the lives of rescuer and rescued. "Tis a grim business, this of the life saving service, and yet how cheerfully it is always done. By some strange irony of fate, this department has never got its just deserts. The federal government, paternal in some ways and prodigal in others, has dealt with a chary hand towards the life-saving service. The crews are hired at the opening of navigation and TYPE OF OLD-TIME STATION. TYPE OF MODERN STATION, SALISBURY BEACH, MASS. discharged at its close. 'They are paid no more than a mere living wage during the season of work and they are left without the wherewithal to tide over the season of enforced idleness. But nowithstanding this governmental indifference, they return in the spring to undertake the hazard of their old positions. As they advance in years they find themselves less able to cope with the rigors of their calling, and they day must inevitably come when they will be no longer able te pull an oar in the teeth of gales. Yet the government makes no provision to care for them when they can no longer care for themselves. It is surprising that in the face of these facts the government has been enabled to attract to the ser- vice the character of men that it has. A bill is now before congress to provide a pension amounting to three-quarters pay to the members of life-saving crews after a certain period of continuous service or after incapacitation as a consequence of the service. This bill does no more than common justice to a splendid body of workmen, and it should be passed. The United States has a coast line, exclusive of Alaska, of more than 10,000 miles. Distributed along this line are 272 life-saving stations, of which 195 are situated on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, sixty on the great lakes, sixteen on the Pacific coast and one at the falls of the Ohio river at Louis- ville. These stations are located at chosen points of dan- ger to shipping and vary somewhat in their character, ac- cording to their environment and the nature of the service demands of them. Some of them are merely huts that have been appropriated to the service of surfmen, while others are built especially to house the crews and are modern in every respect. On some portions of these coasts the stations are placed only at long intervals, while on others they form chains of continuous posts within communicating distance of each other. In the majority of stations built for the service the first floor is divided into four rooms, a boat room, mess room, keeper's room and store room. Wide double leaf doors and a sloping platform extending from the doors to the ground permit the running out of the river equipments from the building. The second story contains two rooms, one a sleep- ing room and the other for rescued persons. Every station is surmounted by a lookout or conservatory in which a day watch is kept. The roofs of the stations are usually painted a dark red, as this color is distinguishable for a long distance. They are also marked by a flag staff 60 ft. high, used in sig- naling passing vessels by the international code. Stations are generally equipped with two surf boats and boat cargo, two sets of breeches-buoy apparatus, a cart for land transpor- tation, a life car, a Lyle gun and the usual rockets for sig- naling. -The United States life-saving service is the only exclusive governmental establishment of the kind in the sworld,.the life- saving institutions abroad being volyntary societies supported privately. It is strange indeed that Britain, being a sea- faring country and having more of its assets on the water than any other nation, should possess no government life- saving service at all. The reason is probably to be found in the brevity of its coast line. The United States has a wonderful coast line, in variety and in extent quite beyond the ability of any privately secured funds to adequately patrol. It is more extended than that of any other country and is fraught with peculiar difficulties and perils to navigators. LIFE BOAT MOUNTED ON CARRIAGE. Yet for many, many years the United States government was absolutely deaf to appeals for protection to vessels and life at sea. It was not until 1878 that the life-saving service was formally established by an act of congress. Hitherto the work had all been done out of private purses. The first regular attempt at organized succor was made by the Massachusetts Humane Society, an organization of gentlemen originally formed in 1786, incorporated for gen-