negligence on the part of the master. If we analyze the cases of collision
that occurred in the year 1857, we are surprised to find that by far the
larger portion of them occur in the open sea, and in clear bright weather.
Out of 277 collisions, involving total and partial loss, bad look-out was
the cause of 88, and neglect of the rule of the road of 33 collisions. It
is a saying among sailors that if the three L's are attended to--Lead,
Latitude, and Look-out,--a ship is safe; and no more apt saying could have
been uttered. Simple as the casting of the lead is, it is almost
invariably found, when the causes of wreck are inquired into, that this
precaution has been neglected. The _Ava_ mail-steamer was undoubtedly lost
off Trincomalee, in February last, owing to this omission. The lead is not
only capable of telling the soundings, which alone would warn the mariner
of the approach of shoal water; but, when armed, it is capable of bringing
a voice from the deep to say on what coast the ship may be. Had the
masters of either the _Reliance_ or _Conqueror_ cast the lead, they would
not only have known that their vessel were getting into shallow water, but
that they were upon the French coast; for the lead brings up a coarser
sand from the shores of our neighbours than from the opposite coast on the
English side. The question of latitude is a question which tests the
nautical knowledge of the captain. A man who can take celestial
observations correctly is not very likely to be deficient in a knowledge
of navigation. The differences between masters of ships in this respect
are very marked. Captain Basil Hall tells us, in his "Fragments of Voyages
and Travels," that on a voyage from California to Rio, the first land he
saw was on either side of him, upon the clearing off of a fog at the
entrance of Rio de Janeiro. With no other guide than science he had hit
his port without sighting land, after a voyage of many thousand miles.
With this we may contrast a case given in the Report on Shipwrecks for
1836, in which the brig _Henry_, of Cork, bound to St. John's, New
Brunswick, with seventy passengers on board, was fallen in with by the
_Andromeda_, of New York, in a starving condition; her master, by his own
reckoning, being 800 miles to the westward of his true position. This man
must have been one of those who, as the sailors say, "come in at the cabin
windows, instead of working his way up through the hawse-holes." Errors of
this kind are not likely to occur so often as formerly, thanks to the
working of the Mercantile Marine Act, which will, we think, prevent the
recurrence of the grosser mistakes in navigation. No greater blessing was
ever conferred on the merchant shipping of this country than a law which
compels the holding an inquiry by competent persons in all cases of
casualty. It is abused, as any measure is sure to be that rigidly sets its
face against misconduct; but it has already done infinite good, and would
do still more if its provisions were strictly enforced.
It is often supposed that the shifting of sandbanks is a cause of wreck,
but there does not seem sufficient ground for this opinion. We have heard
many marvellous stories relative to the shifting of the Goodwin, and of
the sudden exposure in full preservation of the hulls of long lost ships.
These tales are all poetical, though the edge of the bank may here and
there give way and expose the ribs of some vessel long since sucked in.
What change there is in the Goodwin, and it is of a very gradual nature,
takes place on the western or inshore side: its eastern side is as steep
as a wall, and retains the position it had when the first exact survey of
it was made. The Brake Sand in the Downs off Ramsgate seems to have moved
bodily inshore or to the westward, and there is a slight disposition to
change in sands known by the names of the Leigh Middle and Yantlet Ground
in Sea Reach, at the entrance of the river Thames. The Yarmouth and
Lowestoff sands shift slightly. A channel, or gat as it is called, opens
now in one place and now at another; but these variations are soon known
and buoyed by the Trinity House. Changes take place at the entrance of the
Mersey, but the surveyor of the river quickly marks the deviations and
makes them known to the pilots. On the north-east coast of England more
extensive alterations have taken place; a large portion of Holderness, in
Yorkshire, has been washed away, and the sea has broken through Spurn
Point, threatening to make it once more an island. At Landguard Point, at
the entrance of Harwich harbour, the injudicious removal of a barrier of
cement stone, by which the heavy stroke of the sea has been allowed free
action on the shore, has caused the sand to be heaped up within the last
half-century, until a shingle beach now rears its head seven feet above
the level of high water; where, not many years since, a line-of-battle
ship could have sailed into the harbour. Another remarkable increase of
land is at Dungeness, where the shingle has extended at the average rate
of three yards a year, since the beginning of the Christian era. But
although of vast importance to the engineer in dealing with harbours,
these changes are not productive of shipwreck.
The principal cause of shipwreck on the shores of the United Kingdom is
undoubtedly the want of harbours of refuge. From the parliamentary returns
it appears that the tonnage of vessels which entered and cleared from the
ports of this country in 1857 amounted to 23,178,782 tons, or in round
numbers 232,000 vessels. Even this falls short of the number of vessels
that are constantly passing and repassing along our coasts, and which, on
the springing up of a sudden gale, are liable to wreck, inasmuch as it
only gives those which are carrying cargo. It does not include colliers
and other vessels in ballast, nor ships of war, nor small coasters laden
with stone, lime, &c., all of which would swell the amount to full 300,000
vessels.
We have already stated that the number of casualties to shipping on the
coasts and within the seas of the United Kingdom has averaged 1,025 a
year; that the loss of life has amounted to 830 a year, and that the
destruction of property reaches a million and a half. It is not an
uncommon occurrence for a single gale to strew the coasts with wrecks. In
the three separate gales which occurred in the years 1821, 1824, and 1829,
there were lost on the east coast of England, in the short space between
the Humber and the Tees, 169 vessels. In the single gale of the 31st of
August, 1833, 61 vessels were lost on the sands in the North Sea and on
the east coast of England. In the tremendous gale of the 13th of January,
1843, as many as 103 vessels were wrecked off the coasts of the British
Isles, and among them 13 large ships off the port of Liverpool alone. In
the gale of 1846, 39 vessels got ashore in Hartlepool; and in the month of
March, 1850, 134 vessels were stranded or came into collision. In the gale
of the 25th of September, 1851, as many as 117 vessels were wrecked; and
for each of the four first months of the year 1858 the Board of Trade
returns show that there has been from 140 to 150 casualties, or from four
to five a day. These facts are sufficient to prove the appalling loss of
life and of property, and the absolute necessity which exists for
establishing on the most exposed and frequented positions of our coasts
that shelter which the sailor has a right to expect in the time of need.
Formerly in the reports of the shipwreck committees so many vague
generalities were dwelt upon, that the House of Commons had no definite
conclusions upon which to proceed. This is no longer the case. In the
evidence laid before the select committee of the House, when inquiring
into refuge harbours, in the year 1858, it is shown that there are certain
districts in which wreck is the normal state. Nearly one-third of all the
casualties take place on the east coast of Great Britain, and in 1857 it
was more than one-half! Nay, it is all but demonstrated that the larger
part of these occur within some seventy miles of coast, or between
Flamborough Head and the Tyne. Here, then, the subject is narrowed to a
point. The immediate vicinity of the coal ports must be the site of a
harbour of refuge--some spot which all colliers, light and loaded, pass,
whether it be in the bight of the bay (or the bag of the net), as Tees
Bay, or whether it be farther to the southward, near Filey Bay. The exact
locality may require careful consideration; but the question of situation
on the east coast of England is now narrowed to a distance of fifty miles.
One unexpected fact has come to light in the course of this investigation,
namely, that of the colliers lost on this part of the coast, the
proportion of loaded vessels to light is as 5 to 1.
On the coast of Scotland there is a sad want of deep-water harbours of
refuge. From the Pentland Frith southward to Cromarty, a distance of 100
miles, there are none but tidal harbours, all inaccessible for twelve
hours out of the twenty-four. It is the same from the Moray Frith round by
Peterhead to the Frith of Forth, with the exception of the Tay. Yet it is
along this coast that a great part of our Baltic trade, and all the
Greenland, Archangel, Davis Strait, and much of the Canadian and United
States trade must pass. In addition to this traffic, both of these coast
districts are remarkable as the great scene of the herring fishery.
Peterhead has its 250 fishing-boats, Fraserburgh and Buckie more than 400
sail; while farther north, off the coast of Caithness, more than 1,200
fishing boats, manned by 6,000 men, nightly pursue their calling, exposed
to the proverbial suddenness of a North-sea gale. Here then, in some
portion of this district, either at Peterhead, Frazerburgh, or Wick, a
refuge harbour is imperatively required.
On the west coast of England, between the Land's End and the south coast
of Wales, including the Bristol Channel, shelter is absolutely needed. The
trade of the Irish Sea, including Liverpool, Glasgow, and Belfast, and the
great and increasing traffic of the coal ports of Newport, Cardiff, and
Swansea, in addition to the trade of Bristol and Gloucester, urgently call
for some refuge. For the former probably a harbour near the entrance of
the Channel, as at St. Ives, would be the most useful; for the trade of
the upper portion of the Bristol Channel, Clovelly on the south coast,
Lundy Island in the centre, and Swansea Bay on the north, have been the
sites particularly recommended in the evidence. On the coasts of Ireland,
the rocks named the Skerries, near Portrush, on the north coast, Lough
Carlingford on the east, and Waterford on the south, have been mentioned
as places where good harbours may be obtained at but a trifling outlay.
It appears from good evidence that the existing tidal harbours around our
coasts are susceptible of great improvements for the purposes of joining
harbours of refuge in case of need. We think this supplementary view of
the question one of much importance. It is shown that the small sum of
2,500_l._ a year, which the Scottish Fishery Board is empowered to grant
annually, to meet double the amount raised from private sources, has been
of much value, and has given rise to many piers and fishery harbours on
the coasts of Scotland. A somewhat similar measure applied to harbours
generally would be of the utmost value. There are many in which the loan
of a small sum of money, at a low rate of interest, would confer a great
benefit. The enormous parliamentary and other fees attendant on getting a
Harbour Act are so ruinous, that many of the lesser harbours are kept in a
state of decay from the impossibility of raising funds to restore them. We
are glad to see that Mr. Henry Paull, M.P. for St. Ives, has given notice
in the House of a bill to remedy this evil, and to enable some public
department, such as the Admiralty and Board of Trade, to grant the
necessary powers for raising funds to execute _bonâ fide_ improvements. We
cordially wish him success, and trust that he will persevere until his
proposal has become the law of the land.
It would naturally be imagined that the wrecks and collisions that occur
on our own coasts formed only an insignificant portion of the casualties
that take place throughout the world. But this is not so. The trade of the
world is drawn towards our shores, and these shores are washed by narrow
and therefore dangerous seas. Hence we can account for a fact which would
otherwise appear astounding, that the losses on our own coasts form nearly
a third of the losses throughout the world. According to the returns of
Lloyd's agents, the average annual number of casualties and of vessels
that have touched the ground within the last four years in all seas is
3,254; whilst, as we have already stated, those that occur upon our coast
average 1,025. Long as the list of home disasters is, it is at least
satisfactory to find that the more severe cases are not increasing. The
official record of these casualties does not extend back farther than the
year 1852, but the annual returns since that date, which we append, are on
the whole encouraging.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| | 1852. | 1853. | 1854. | 1855. | 1856. | 1857. |
|---------------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|
| Wrecks | 958 | 759 | 893 | 894 | 837 | 866 |
| Collisions | 57 | 73 | 94 | 247 | 316 | 277 |
| |-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|
| TOTAL | 1015 | 832 | 987 | 1141 | 1153 | 1143 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
From this Table it will be seen that while there is an absolute decrease
with respect to wrecks, which is due, no doubt, to the greater
intelligence of the masters and the working of the Mercantile Marine Act,
a large and increasing number of collisions has happened. The latter
circumstance is important, and in all probability is attributable to two
causes, the vast addition that has taken place of late years to the trade
of the country, and the manner in which steam is supplanting the use of
sails. If we cast back our glance only fifteen years, and compare the
trade of that period with what it is at present, we are astonished at the
rate at which our commerce has advanced. We find it stated in the
statistical abstract of the year 1858, that the amount of British shipping
which entered and cleared from the ports of the United Kingdom in 1843 was
7,181,179 tons, and of foreign 2,643,383 tons, making together an
aggregate tonnage of 9,824,562 tons. In 1857, however, the tonnage of
British shipping entered and cleared had increased to 13,694,107, and the
foreign shipping to 9,484,685 tons, making an aggregate quantity of no
less than 23,178,792 tons; thus showing an increase of 13,354,230 tons, or
136 per cent., in fourteen years! With this prodigious addition to the
ships passing our shores, we have reason to be thankful that wrecks are
not of far more frequent occurrence, and it will account for the otherwise
alarming multiplication of the number of collisions. And not only are
there more ships, but a greater proportion of them are propelled by steam.
A parliamentary paper, not long since published, shows that the number of
steamers employed in the Home and Foreign trade has increased from 414 in
1849 to 899 in 1857; that is, the number of vessels most prone to come
into collision has more than doubled within the last eight years, and
while the sailing vessels have increased during this period only 3·49 per
cent., the latter have increased 117·15 per cent., the proportion of
steamers to sailing vessels having advanced from 2·22 per cent. in 1849 to
4·87 per cent. in 1857. Bearing in mind the speed at which steamers go,
and the manner in which their powerful lights, just introduced, simulate
those of lighthouses and lightships, the increase of collisions is not
surprising. There can be no doubt that the introduction of coloured
side-lights, which all vessels, both sailing and steamers, must
henceforward exhibit, will enable the direction in which another ship is
standing to be distinguished, which was not the case heretofore.
The most important object after the prevention of shipwreck is that of
rescuing the crew when the catastrophe takes place. All along the
coast--grouped thicker together where the fatal black dots indicate
dangerous spots--we find rude marks indicative of the presence of
life-boats. Thus, whenever the dangerous headland or the hidden shoal
threatens destruction to the mariner, the means of preservation are close
at hand. Of these boats, each manned by a fearless crew of twelve
volunteers, there are 141 stationed along the coast; seventy being under
the management of the National Life-Boat Institution, and seventy-one
under the direction of various corporations and local authorities. To the
princely conduct of the Duke of Northumberland, the President of the
National Life-Boat Institution, we owe the present improved condition of
the means of saving life in cases of shipwreck. As far back as the year
1790, two humble boatbuilders on the banks of the Tyne, Greathead and
Wouldhave (who were encouraged and fostered by the then Duke of
Northumberland), invented the broad, curved form of life-boat, with
air-cases, which was chiefly in use around our coasts. This model was
afterwards much departed from, and by degrees the most imperfect boats
(provided they were lined with what were supposed to be air-tight cases)
were dignified with the name of life-boats. The many casualties that
happened to these craft, which were built by rule of thumb rather than
upon any scientific system, brought them into much disrepute. Too often,
indeed, their hardy crews, instead of fulfilling their mission, were
drowned on the way. In some instances, owing to their defective build,
they turned _end over end_ when struck by a heavy sea, and, from want of
the power to right themselves when capsized, the unfortunate men were
encaged beneath them. To prevent the recurrence of such disastrous
accidents, the Duke of Northumberland offered a premium for the production
of a model life-boat, and the result was the exhibition of several
respectable contrivances. Not one of them, however, fulfilled all the
prescribed conditions; nor was it until after several trials and many
experiments that the present life-boat was completed. It appears to be the
production of a committee and not of an individual; but the chief credit
of it is due to Mr. Peake, of the Royal Dockyard, Woolwich; to Joseph
Prowse, junior, foreman of the same yard; and to Messrs. Forrestt, the
well-known boat-builders of Limehouse. It has been adopted by the
Life-Boat Institution, and has stood the test of some years' experience
without a single failure. In a trial lately made at Boulogne, the boat was
twice purposely capsized by the help of a crane, and righted herself in
two seconds, and in less than fifteen seconds the water with which she was
filled disappeared through her self-acting valves. Of the entire number of
1668 seamen saved during the last year, 399 owed their lives to these
boats, and we have no doubt that in future years they will prove still
more effective, if only well handled and not rashly sailed by
inexperienced men; for no life-boat can be devised that will not be liable
to accidents if entrusted to careless or unskilful hands.
But there is another point almost equally important that seems to have
been greatly overlooked, the worthlessness of the so-called life-boats
that every emigrant ship, every transport, every passenger vessel, is by
Act of Parliament required to carry. We have no hesitation in pronouncing
them to be in most cases a mockery, a delusion, and a snare. It is not
long since that we heard from the lips of one of the most extensive
boat-builders on the banks of the Thames, that, when a boat was condemned
as unseaworthy for any other purpose, it was a common practice to patch it
up, add a certain amount of air-case, and dispose of it as a life-boat. We
know not with whom it rests to see the Act enforced, whether with the
Board of Trade or the Life-boat Association, but the fact of its evasion
is notorious, and a heavy responsibility rests somewhere. Even when the
crazy thing is embarked, it is often so stowed that it cannot be lowered
in case of need without long delay, and is frequently deficient in sails,
oars, thole-pins, plugs, and always without an efficient compass. Yet in
this ill-equipped boat the lives of thirty, forty, perhaps fifty, of our
too confiding countrymen are risked. It would be easy to see, before the
vessel sailed, that the life-boat was efficient; that a certain supply of
provisions and fresh water was placed in proper cases; that the mast,
sails, oars, and thole-pins were secured into the boat, and that an
efficient boat-compass was provided, instead of the ridiculous toy that
goes by that name, the card of which spins round like a top at every
stroke of the oars. The beautiful spirit or liquid boat-compass of Dent
may be purchased for less than £5. A life-boat thus furnished would give
confidence to the passengers, would serve them well in time of need, and
would be no more than the legislature is entitled to require under the
provisions of the Act. Anything less is a gross imposition upon the simple
emigrants, who embark in confidence, believing that everything has been
done for their safety.
In addition to the life-boat system we have located in most of the
coast-guard stations rocket and mortar apparatus to enable a connection to
be established with stranded vessels by firing a rope over them. This
method was effectual in 243 cases during the last year, and is well worked
under the auspices of the Board of Trade. The drawback to the use of the
mortar apparatus is its weight, which prevents its being easily
transported along the rocky shores where it is chiefly needed, but we
understand that Mr. Brown, of the General Register and Record Office of
Seamen, has invented a portable apparatus, which will in all probability
greatly facilitate our means of communicating with stranded vessels, and
tend in no small measure to still further lessen the dismal list of seamen
who annually perish on our weather-beaten coast.
LODGING, FOOD, AND DRESS OF SOLDIERS.
If the question had been asked a short time since what body of men
presented the most healthy lives in her Majesty's dominions, the reply
might reasonably have been Her Majesty's Foot-Guards. Recruited, at the
age of nineteen, principally from among the agricultural population,
submitted to the critical examination of the inspecting surgeon, tried in
wind and limb and tested at every point, the would-be soldier must be
proved an athlete, or renounce for ever the hope of wearing her Majesty's
uniform. Absorbed into the picked corps of the army; quartered either in
metropolitan barracks or within a stone's-throw of the palace of the
Sovereign; clothed, fed, housed, and tended in sickness by the State; and
only in the face of great emergencies required to brave the dangers of
foreign service; the weak and incapable instantly weeded out from the
ranks,--his does indeed seem to be a select life, with which no other
among the labouring classes would appear to be comparable. As we see him
on parade in all the pomp and panoply of war, we view him with pride as
worthy of that noble band that swept irresistibly before it the eagles of
France, and, single-handed, at Inkermann, long kept the foe at bay, and
saved two armies from destruction. Yet take the unhealthiest trades in
England--the pallid tailor, as he sits at his board, or the miner who
lives in the bowels of the earth--and it will be found that the percentage
of deaths in their ranks is not nearly so great as in those of the
magnificent Guards, pipeclayed and polished up to meet the eye of princes,
but, alas! often little better than whited sepulchres. Such is the fact
elicited by the labours of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into
the regulations affecting the sanitary condition of the army. If the "most
favoured" regiments furnish these disastrous results, it may be imagined
that the condition of the rank and file, who take their turn in all
climates, must be much worse; but, strange to say, the contrary is the
fact. This is shown in the following table, which gives the number per
thousand who die every year among the army at home and among the male
civilians of England and Wales at army ages:--
Household cavalry 11·0
Dragoon Guards and Dragoons 13·3
Foot Guards 20·4
Infantry of the line 18·7
Population of England and Wales, at army ages:--
Town and country population 9·2
Country alone 7·7
One of the unhealthiest towns at army ages:--
Manchester 12·4
According to Mr. Neison's calculation, the mortality of the Household
Cavalry is 1-4/5, Dragoons, &c., 2-1/5, Line 2-9/10, and Guards 3-1/13
times as great as the mortality of the agricultural labourers who are
members of friendly societies. Well may the Commissioners, contemplating
these returns, remark--