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 like 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 or 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.