Life-Saving as a Business Duty

SERIOUS and frequent disasters, involving large sacrifices of property and of human life, have lately directed public attention to the imperfect guards against accident, and to the inadequate means of rescue, which are maintained in this country. Compared with the measures of safety adopted by all corporations, private and public, and enforced by law, in France, England and Germany, our precautions against disasters by fire, on railways, in mines and at sea are simply disgraceful. There is no country of equal intelligence and population in which the policy of prevention has been, and is, so little employed, or in which the organized preventive forces are so small as America. This is true not only of accidents, but of crimes ; our police forces are organized, not to deter criminals by their numbers and strict surveillance, but to detect offenders after the commission of the crime. We have no organization which bears the slightest semblance to the thoroughly educated corps of railway operatives who run the trains in England with such security that “death on the rail,”so horribly common with us, is less frequent there than death by lightning, while the chances of being hung for crime are thirty times as favorable as of being crushed by cars. This corps is estimated by Samuel Smiles (1868) at 163,068 in number, and is described as being composed of “ the picked men of the country.” These men are employed to work the machinery of about 14,000 miles of railway. A writer in the New York Times estimates the railway-operating employés in America at only 150,000, for 45,000 miles of railway ; these are also picked men, that is, picked up at a moment’s notice and educated at the brakes. We have here also no coastguard, no life-boat service, and very inadequate fire-brigades as compared with those of England and France. We have not even humane associations, holding out the small incentive of a medal of honor to individual efforts at saving life, and the law ignores such inducements.

It is not a little strange that a people so pre-eminently practical as the Americans should have thus utterly failed to systematically provide, as others have, against accidents. We have no idea of the value of the ounce of prevention : we are undeniably fast, but we do not know how to make haste slowly. A system of signals, − such as that without whose direction no locomotive in England ever turns a wheel, − worked by an intelligent man, would have saved from a horrible death by fire eight passengers on the Erie Railway, in June last. An inspection-corps on the Long Island Railroad would have prevented the terrible accident, resulting from a broken rail, which occurred on that road in April. An educated fireman at the furnace would have prevented the accumulation of the gases in the shaft of the Avondale mine in September, and the consequent dreadful explosion and loss of one hundred and three lives ; and had the greater precaution of sinking a double shaft been employed, the security would have been certain and the accident could not have occurred. There are countless instances where the violation of the simple rule “ prevention is better than cure ” has cost precious lives and valuable property ; and our readers scarcely need to be reminded of the criminal carelessness with which the American hastes to be rich, at the constant risk of death. Before the inquest on the one hundred and three victims of the Avondale disaster was completed, work in the mines was resumed without a change in the shaft arrangements or the addition of a single precaution against like accident. A New York paper, out of patience with the men who flocked to obtain work in this pit of death, protested that they deserved the fate they defied ; but it never invoked the power of the law against the proprietors who deliberately reset such a deadly trap to catch the poor fellows who are compelled to choose between its dangers and starvation.

But though we neglect the preventive measures, American inventive genius has been largely directed to the construction of various machines for rescuing endangered life and property. The steam-fire engine is one admirable result ; the preservation of property was the incentive to its invention and use, and as a consequence it was rapidly introduced into all the large cities of the Union. But the manufacture of fire-escapes, which save life only, is − as a business − a failure, and the law which requires that these appliances shall be affixed to all houses in which two or more families reside is a dead letter. It has been shown by competent authority (the Board of Health of New York City) that the sacrifice of human life by the adulteration of kerosene burning-fluid is greater than that by railroad and steamboat accidents combined ; yet it seems impossible to enforce the law, and stop the adulteration which yields to numerous dealers a handsome profit on an otherwise valueless article. How the inventor of the life-boat struggled to introduce it, is a familiar and painful story ; indeed, every effort to introduce contrivances of like character, which have for their purpose the saving of life only, is met with an apathy as singular as it is horrifying. Mr. Francis was many years in perfecting his admirable life-boat, but it required many more years of time, and greater labor, to bring it into general use. I am aware, as may be some of my readers interested in this subject, of a similar struggle going on at the present time in this country. An inventor whose life-saving apparatus has been practically tested, and awarded prizes, at the French Industrial Exhibition of 1867, and by the SociétéCentrale de Sauvetage des Naufragés, has been for years endeavoring to induce steamship-owners to adopt and use his apparatus, but thus far in vain. He has endeavored to bring it to general public notice by exhibitions of its practical application in New York Harbor. To one of these remarkable displays the whole press of New York was invited ; but no notices of it were published. I had the curiosity to inquire at one of the principal offices the reason of the omission, and was told that the enterprise was one of private, not public interest, and that the paper did not notice such unless paid therefor. It was in vain that I endeavored to convince the proprietor, who had a holy horror of the “puff gratuitous,” that a duty to the public, which is (or rather ought to be) interested in all philanthropic enterprises, even though actuated by private interest, should have led him to notice this apparatus.¹

A few months ago, another inventor, after the exercise of much patience and ingenuity, succeeded in securing a test by the Navy Department at Washington of his apparatus for instantly detaching a life-boat from the davits in order to launch it, when filled, with precision and safety in the heaviest seas. He also succeeded in getting the Washington newspaper correspondents to announce the fact that such a test was to be made. But from that day to this, no report of the result of the experiment has been made by officers or reporters, and the “ let-go,” as the invention was called, is still a mystery to the public.

But even should such inventors succeed in bringing their apparatus into use, it is to be doubted if the result would fully justify their anticipations or repay their efforts and expenditures. Only a fear of the law induces shipowners and officers to provide their steamers with life-boats, buoys, and preservers ; and in thousands of cases, on every inland stream in the country, the law is not observed at all. Approaching the dangerous entrances to a harbor, every ship takes on board, at a loss of time and a heavy expense in money, a local pilot ; but it is not a desire to secure the safety of the passengers which induces this action on the part of the captain. It is done, with many complaints and curses at delay and expense, because the failure to do so nullifies the insurance policy on the vessel and cargo. Unless, therefore, some such regulation create a demand for life-saving apparatus, the fear of the law and consideration for the public safety will not. It will probably surprise many readers to learn that the cork life-buoys, cork jackets, cork beds, and the like life-preserving articles, with which steamers are partly provided, and which are sometimes sold to individuals, are adulterated. Yet such is the fact; and for the simple reason that the demand, created in the first place by the law and not by an honest desire to secure the safety of the passengers, is not maintained, and is not adequate to repay honest manufacture. No seaman of experience buys a buoy, jacket, or bed without first examining it by puncturing it through and through to detect the adulteration. Many of the life-preservers sold by ship-chandlers, and furnished to passengers on our steamships and boats, are made of straw and rushes and defective cork. After becoming thoroughly saturated with water, as they must in a short time, they not only do not buoy up the swimmer, but become a positive weight about him, and inevitably sink him if he be compelled to remain many hours in the water. The same kind of adulteration,

I may remark by the way, is extended to cables and other tackle used by ships, all of which experienced seamen test before buying.

There are numerous other instances of the indifference of corporations and the government to the safety of the public. An effort was made some years since, to establish on the American seacoast the storm-signals in successful use in England ; and though advocated with the greatest earnestness, the attention of the country has never been drawn seriously to it. Only a few practical seamen and as many meteorologists seemed to appreciate the importance to commerce and to life of a signal telegraph, which would indicate to our merchant-fleet for many miles at sea the approach and the character and force of storms while they were yet at a distance. The life-boats which the law requires each vessel to carry are in nine cases out of ten useless. Few of them can live in seas which wreck vessels ; the instances in which they have been launched in heavy seas are very rare, and those still fewer where they have conveyed passengers from a beached vessel through a heavy surf to the shore. In the event of fire at sea the life-boats would doubtless be valuable aids to escape if they were properly carried in the davits, but this is seldom done, − they are usually stored in some out-of-the-way place on deck.

The most encouraging of the efforts I have yet observed in this country for the saving of life at sea is the organization of fleets of wrecking-vessels by incorporated companies. But I am sorry to confess that what little philanthropy I have was much shocked when, in examining into the system, I found that the primary object of these organizations was altogether selfish ; the saving of property, and not of life, being the incentive to their expensive organization, constant surveillance of the coast, and prompt action in succoring vessels in danger. These companies, which save life by the ship-load, I find, are as indifferent as others to the claims of humanity, and perform their duty in saving life because it is necessary to the legal establishment of their claim to be paid for what property they may save. There is a premium for saving property,−none for saving life; the law of salvage directly encourages the picking up of floating cotton-bales, but only indirectly commends the rescue of sinking human beings. In other words, the United States laws of “ wreck and salvage” require that a wrecker, in establishing his claim for saving property, shall prove that he endeavored to save all life endangered before attempting to secure the property at risk; this is the only inducement held out by this great nation to lead men to save the lives of their fellow-creatures.

It is this pecuniary inducement of salvage which has resulted in the systematizing of wrecking as a business. The organizations and operations of these several companies, and the adventures of some of their employés, are of a very curious character, and may be studied with interest and profit.

There are five incorporated companies at work on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts ; and there may be others of which I know nothing, for this is a branch of Industry which has seldom made its details public. These five companies are named and organized as follows: −

Name. No. of Boats. No. of Men.

Atlantic Submarine Wrecking Com pany, New York 7 128

New York Wrecking and Towing Company 6 102

Boston Wrecking Company 5 87

Norfolk “ “ 3 75

New Orleans “ “ 4 100

Total 25 492

Each vessel of the several fleets is fitted up for its peculiar service with apparatus to extinguish flames ; great pumps for exhausting water from the holds of sunken ships ; lifting-apparatus of all kinds, from the derrick and hydraulic pump and “gutta-percha pontoons” − the latter an application of the balloon principle to lilting-purposes − to the jack - screw and the common cask; but singularly enough, in all those which I visited I found no trace whatever of life-boats or life-preservers. The organizers of these companies seem never to have provided facilities for saving life ; they are lifepreservers and rescuers on compulsion and without consideration. The decks are well strewn with cables and chains and anchors, there is generally a surfboat on board, but never by any chance or error a patent life-preserver or cork bed. The boats, too, are small, and not specially built for the service, being usually old tugs, with the addition of hoisting-apparatus looking very much like masts without sails.

These five companies patrol the Atlantic and the Gulf coast as closely as our streets are patrolled at night; but this is not done solely by the vessels of the fleet. Each company has its locality to watch ; a mutual understanding seems to give the Boston company the surveillance of the coast from Maine to Rhode Island, − only the wreckers of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard and of the dangerous reefs in that vicinity disputing its claim ; the two New York companies divide the Long Island Sound and the New Jersey coast to Cape May between them, leaving the pickings to the fisher-wreckers of Barmegat; the Norfolk company has no rivals from Cape May southward to the Florida reefs, save the tar-heeled North Carolinian pirates on the dangerous coast about Hatteras ; the Florida reefs are given up to the old-style wreckers, who have fished and fought there for fifty years ; and all the rest of the Gulf coast is surrendered to the New Orleans company. Of course it would be impossible to keep vessels continually moving about these courses on the watch for wrecks, and no attempt is made to do so, but still a strict surveillance is always kept by the companies’ agents on the coast. These agents are all sorts of persons and characters, their medium of communication with the central offices is the telegraph, and with the vessels cruising at sea the signal-flag. They are the small farmers, fishers, wreckers, light-house keepers, and others living on the coast. A standing reward induces any one of them, observing a vessel wrecked or in danger of being wrecked on the coast in their vicinity, to ride to the nearest telegraph-office and announce the danger in which the vessel is placed to the president of the company. By another standing agreement with the telegraph companies, the despatch announcing a wreck is delivered in duplicate and triplicate, or, technically speaking, “ dropped ” at all the boat-stations of the company. Thus the captains of the several boats of a company know of a wreck as soon as the president, and, steaming up, wait for orders, or act on their own judgment with promptness. Many of the agents are queer old characters,−men who have not wandered from the coast for years, − men with eyes sharper, in spite of old age, than the hawk’s, and able to discern the condition of a ship so far at sea as to be invisible to inexperienced though younger eyes. Among others who combine this extra work with their daily labor is the “Hermit of the Highlands,” an old gentleman who has a lookout in the light-house at Neversink Highlands, near the Sandy Hook entrance to New York Harbor. He is, as I learned from himself last summer, more than threescore years old, but he is hale and ruddy in spite of his spareness, and has that quickness of movement which we see in those old men only who have lived busy lives free from dissipation. Thirty-two years ago he was a ship-news reporter at the station in New York, being engaged to receive the despatches transmitted by the semaphore telegraph. This telegraph was at that time attracting comment as a remarkable means of transmitting news at the rapid rate of six miles a minute, − a boast made by the inventor of the signal code, Marryat, about the same time (1830) that the daring innovator, George Stephenson, declared, amid much laughter by Parliament and people, that he could run his locomotive with a train attached at the rate of twelve miles an hour. One summer the ship-news reporter asked for a vacation; he was in ill health : and as a recreation the company sent him to the Neversink Highlands to transmit messages, and forgot to recall him. There he has remained ever since, forgotten ; and though living within twenty miles of New York and fifteen of Long Branch, he has never since visited either, knows nothing of the latter as a fashionable watering-place, or of the appearance of the former north of what he remembers as the swamp in Canal Street. He reported the arrival of the first steamship that ever touched these shores. His practised eye enables him to discern vessels at incredible distances, and to tell by their build the name of each. As soon as an approaching vessel appears above the horizon, he can tell her name, and does tell it by means of the telegraph instrument, which, with the telescope, forms the apparatus of his little office, to the news-offices in New York; and the fact appears in the shipnews columns in all the papers of the next day under the head “Below,” which means that the vessel named is in the Lower Bay. If a wreck occurs within the sharp vision of the old reporter, he telegraphs name, locality, and nature of the wreck to the wreckingcompanies as well as to the newspapers, and calls the reward of the former his perquisites. In the same manner the farmers, fishers, and wreckers serve the wrecking-companies as agents.

It is marvellous with what rapidity the wrecking-boats act, on the receipt of the telegrams announcing the loss of a vessel. A display of this promptness led to my inquiry into the subject. I was crossing East River from Brooklyn to New York by Wall Street ferry in May last, and witnessed the collision of a tug with a small steam ferry-boat. The ferry-boat immediately began to sink and to capsize. Dozens of vessels of all kinds rushed to the rescue of those on board, and saved all who were compelled to take to the water. Among others I saw the wrecking-boat “ Philip ” leave her dock, run out into the stream, attach a cable to the sinking vessel, and tow her out of the channel into shallow water, where she sank, only to be raised the next day by the same boat which had so promptly aided her. Another remarkable illustration of the activity of these salvors is found in the account of the wrecks of September 8, 1869. On that night a severe gale on Long Island Sound drove six vessels high and dry on the beach in Tarpaulin Cove, seven others at Coasters’ Harbor, as many on the islands about Newport : in all forty-three vessels were wrecked at various points on the coasts of the Sound. On the 12th of the same month, three days later, the wrecking-masters of a single company had visited these wrecks and made preparations to float them again, and the work on all was completed before the week had elapsed.

Attached to one of these companies, and in command of the wreckingsteamer “Philip,” is an old sailor, by name and title Captain Charles Hazzard, who is doubtless justly entitled to the honor he claims, of having saved more human lives than any other man now living in the United States. He has been a wrecker for twenty-eight successive years, and has survived no less than nineteen of his own boats. He has had command of a wrecking-vessel from the time he reached the age of twenty-one, and he served six years of apprenticeship before reaching that chiefest of all dignities in his eyes. The life appears to have a strange fascination for him, and he is seldom absent from his vessel ; when in the city, his restlessness makes him a most uncomfortable companion ; at sea he is contented and congenial, and one of the most interesting and pleasant of talkers. It is not difficult to detect that his education has been almost wholly received at sea ; but even a landsman can see that his nautical knowledge is perfect and his training as a wrecker complete.

I had occasion to ask him once what guided him in his cruises; what led him to leave port; what to return to port; in short, how he “nosed out” wrecks with such surprising accuracy.

“Why, it’s all owing to common sense, reason, and experience,” he answered. “ What leads a merchant to fetch certain goods from abroad, but his knowledge of what the people Want ? ”

“ Come, come, that’s not a fair illustration. The merchant is guided by fixed rules, known to all commercial men. Wreckers are not.”

“Yes, they are,” he persisted. Now, in the first place, I know the coast ; I know this coast just as well as you know any street in New York. I know its capes as you know the street-corners; I know where the dangerous shoals and reels are as well as you know the bad crossings, − every bit as well as the policeman does his beat. Then I know the water currents and the wind currents, and I can tell − what I expect you can’t − from the looks of the sky whether there is going to be a storm or a fog, and I can guess pretty fairly at their force and density, and how long they will last. I know, of course, which way the wind blows, and I can calculate where it would carry a ship if it caught it unawares. Besides that, I know the routes of the ships, and their times. You know the habits of your friends, the way they go to their business and to their homes, and their hours, and you can go out with some certainty of meeting them at certain points. Well, I know the ships’ routes and their time, and I can steam out and be pretty certain to meet ’em, I can guess, too, that a certain ship has met with a storm at a certain point, and I can calculate pretty accurately where that storm carried her ; so I steam to that point to help her if it is necessary. That’s the way I saved the ' Isaac Webb’ last winter. There was a heavy storm out beyond the Hook, and was likely to last a day or two. I knew the ' Isaac Webb' was due somewhere in the ' pocket,’ − that ’s the name we give to the ocean between the Long Island and New Jersey coasts just beyond Sandy Hook, − and I steamed up and went down to the Lower Bay. That night we could n’t go outside the bar, because the storm was very furious, blowing from the northeast, but I kept a sharp lookout along the Jersey coast. You see I never watched the Long Island coast, because the wind blew from that direction. That was common sense, was n't it?”

I admitted that I thought it was.

“ Well, early next morning,” he resumed, “ I was on the lookout, and saw straight across the low sands of the Hook the very ‘ Isaac Webb ’ I had been watching for ashore on the Jersey beach, and making signals of distress. I roused all hands and went out beyond the bar to aid her, but I soon begun to think I was a fool for my pains, for the sea was running high, and I knew I would have to keep head on to the waves, or go ashore broadside, as the ‘Webb’ had already done. Then I begun to reflect, too, that the ‘ Webb ’ was an emigrant packet-ship, and full of passengers, and I ’d have to take ’em all off before I could do anything for the ship. You see, I ain’t hard-hearted, and would do as much as anybody to help a drowning man; but life-saving don’t pay. If I had a-been hard-hearted, I wouldn’t have gone out of the Hook at all. Besides, I could n't make any bargain for saving the ship till I saved the passengers, and the way she was thumping when I got near her satisfied me she could n’t be saved if I stopped to save the passengers. She was broadside along the beach, and the rollers broke over her every time. The passengers were above deck, clinging to the rigging and masts wherever they could. The yards were all loose, and swinging about in the gale at a fearful rate, the torn sails snapping like whips. I expected to see masts, rigging, people, and all go over every minute. I felt the case was almost hopeless ; I saw very soon that I could n’t save the passengers without saving the ship, and did n't see much chance for that. The mate of the 'Webb' knew me and my boat, and when I got within hearing he called out, ‘ Hazzard, for God’s sake try to do something for us.’ At the same time the passengers raised a similar cry of. 'Save us, captain, save us.’ I did n't like to leave them then, though I thought it was tempting Providence to try and help them ; so I concluded to make one effort, and, after looking below at the state of the boilers and machinery, and cautioning the engineer to keep up full steam and mind the signals, I backed down and threw them a hawser. It was a dangerous business, I tell you, and I saw by their looks that my men thought so too. ‘It’s only adding the “Philip” to that wreck,’ said my mate. The ‘Webb’ crew and passengers saw what a desperate chance it was, but they acted prompt and made fast the hawser at the fore. I went to the helm myself and signalled to steam ahead, which the engineer did slowly ; the hawser tautened, and, just as I expected to see the ‘ Webb’ move, the hawser parted, and a shriek of despair went up on board the ‘ Webb.’

“ I stood off from the wreck then for some time ; I had to steam ahead to keep bows on to the sea, you know ; and the cries for help went up as long as I could hear ’em above the roll of the waves. I concluded after a time to make another trial, and again backed down to the wreck and cast aboard a fourteen-inch hawser, the heaviest I had. I moved her that time, but I never got her head to the sea. I had to drag her for a mile and a half-broadside to the beach, touching the sandy bottom half the distance, until I rounded the Hook. Then I dragged her inside and behind the Hook, and let her sink in shallow water, but smooth. If she had remained outside she would have been battered to pieces, but inside she could rest until we chose to raise her. There was no difficulty in getting the passengers off, and I steamed up to New York with four hundred passengers on the ‘ Philip.’ The next day the ‘ Webb ’ was raised and taken to the dock in New York, and is now making her voyages again. Now I claim that the ‘ Philip ' saved that ship and those people. The ‘ Webb ’ would have gone to pieces in a few hours more, and those people would have been drowned; some of ’em might have reached the Hook, but not many. That was common sense what did it, and I claim to have saved their lives.”

“ I should say so, undoubtedly.”

“ And I claim I ’ve saved more lives than any other man in the United States in the same way, though I never got any credit for it. I never wanted pay, but I would like the credit. They did talk about humane-society medals, but I ain't never seen any, except the Albert medal given by Queen Victoria to two Americans.”

“ How many lives do you suppose you have saved, Captain ? ” I asked.

He looked a little puzzled.

“ And how many ships have you aided ? ”

“ That’s a tough question to answer,” he said at length. “Twentyeight years is a long time to think over for names and dates and the like. Many of the vessels I have aided have not been totally wrecked, you know, and life was not in danger. I reckon I must have aided five hundred vessels in my time, − that is, of all classes and in all conditions. But the big wrecks which would have been total and with heavy loss of life ain’t many. I can remember the names of a few. There was the ship ‘ Vespasian,’ which went ashore at Barnegat twenty-seven years ago, − that was my first big wreck. She went to pieces before my work was done, but I took off her crew and three hundred passengers. I lost the ‘ Duchess of Orleans,’ at Sandy Hook Point, twenty-five years ago, but I took off her crew and five hundred and odd passengers, The bark ‘Vernon’ and crew of sixteen were rescued at Fire Island the same winter. The English bark ‘ Greenock ’ was a total wreck near Montauk Point twenty years ago, but I took off four hundred passengers and crew from her. Then there was four hundred more from the ‘ Henry Clay ’ at Cranberry Inlet; five hundred from the ship ‘ Argo,’ at Barnegat; six hundred from the ship ‘ Garrick,’ one of the old Collins Dramatic line,−-all wrecked about fifteen years ago ; then the ‘ North America,’ from which I rescued six hundred people while she was breaking to pieces. Then came the ‘ Cornelius Grinnell,’ with six hundred passengers ; the ‘ New Erie,’ with two hundred and fifty ; the ship ‘ Scotland ’ at Egg Harbor, with five hundred more ; the ' Isaac Webb,’ with four hundred more ; besides the crew and passengers of the ' Chauncey Jerome.’ ' Flying Dutchman,’ ‘St. Patrick,’ ‘New York,’ and ‘Windsor Fay,’ − a hundred and fifty of these there must have been, easy. How many is that ? ” I had been making memoranda of the names and figures as the captain related them, and, casting up the total and giving it a head, I read it aloud to him as follows : −

THE CAPTAIN’S ROLL or HONOR.

Passengers

Year. Vessels. Locality. saved.

1842 Vespasian Barnegat 300

1844 Duchess of York Sandy Hook 500

1844 Vernon Fire Island 16

1849 Greenock Montauk 400

1854 Henry Clay Cranberry Inlet 400

1854 Argo Barnegat 500

1854 Garrick 600

North America 600

Cornelius Grinnell 600

1854 New Eric 250

Scotland Egg Harbor 500

1868 Isaac Webb Sandy Hook 400

Chauncey Jerome

Flying Dutchman

St. Patrick

New York

}150

Windsor Fay

Total, — 17 vessels ; Passengers : 5216

“That’s a good number,” said the captain, repeating the total. “ I really had n’t any idea myself that it was so many. I don’t suppose I can claim to have saved all those people, for some would have escaped anyhow.”

“ Still,” I said, pursuing my favorite argument, “ that does not lessen the magnitude of the service done nor cancel the obligations of the rescued. But the wdrld never recognizes at its full value the labor and the forethought which saves life by rendering accident impossible, or providing a ready means of rescue. You will get more credit with the public by picking up a single man actually sinking in the water, than by saving six hundred and the ship too, in which they were about to be wrecked and lost”

“ And those you save,” broke in the captain, with some petulancy of tone, “never give you any credit.”

“Very seldom, I am afraid.”

“ Not even when you risk your own boat,” - I don’t suppose the captain ever thought about risking his life in the same connection, − “ not even when you risk your own boat to save them. Now there was the wreck of the ship ‘ Dashing Wave,’− I don’t think I mentioned her before, did I? Well, the ' Dashing Wave ’ was from California, and ran ashore near Barnegat. She was got off by her crew and was towed by the ‘Gladiator’ round the Hook and into the Horse-Shoe in the Lower Bay. Here she was left, while the ‘ Gladiator ’ ran up to New York for more hands and pumps, for the ‘ Wave ’ was leaking badly. While she was gone a heavy nor’wester sprung up, and the ‘Wave’was soon thumping against the west shore of the Hook. Observing her signals of distress from my station at the Hook, I put off to her, and, getting in hailing-distance, was told she had six feet of water in her hold, and filling rapidly. Her crew were worn out at the pumps, so there was nothing to do but save them and let the ship sink. I steamed up under her lee, but found it almost impossible to get near her. As the waves broke over her, they washed my upper deck and pilot-house. You can guess how rough it was, when I tell you that one of the breakers passing Over the ‘Wave ’ amidslip fell on my deck and carried me aft twenty-five feet, and I escaped being swept overboard only by clinging to the rail. Noticing that the 'Wave' was sinking fast, I backed under her bows and told the crew to jump for their lives, for I couldn’t do any better. Thirty of ’em made the leap and were saved. It was the only chance of salvation, they had. No ship’s boat could have lived in that sea; the ship could n’t last an hour ; it would have been destruction to me if I had touched her or ventured nearer ; yet these same fellows actually grumbled, after they were safe, because I had n’t done more for ’em. I saved some rich citizens of —, in the same way once ; but, though I can’t say they were ungrateful, they treated me very shabby, I thought.”

“ How ? ”

“Well, while I was laying in port the papers talked soft stuff and nonsense about my gallantry, and two hundred ladies came aboard in a bunch to thank me, and wanted me to go ashore. I had to put off to sea before I was ready, to get rid of those women.”

“ Was not that showing their gratitude ? ”

“Well, yes, I suppose it was; but, you see, that public way of doing it don’t suit me. I like to see a man grateful, but I don’t care for him to tell me so, particular if everybody’s looking on.”

It is an inconsistency which I suspect to be common to all really modest people, to wish to know that those whom they oblige are grateful, without being told so. What a pity it is that all persons thus obliged have not the sense and discrimination and delicacy to prove, instead of proclaiming, their gratitude !

The captain is a type of a class − not large, it is true − which has been enabled in an unostentatious way to do much good ; and he is a fair sample of several others whom I have met, and to the recital of whose adventures I have listened. The good accomplished by such men through the organized means at their hands is immense, and deserves fuller and more appropriate recognition and commendation than this brief and incomplete account of their method of operation. The good such men might do if encouraged and rewarded by proper laws is simply incalculable.