SAVING LIFE AT SEA.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIII, Issue 1564, 9 August 1873, Page 2

SAVING LIFE AT SEA.

, '. With reference to ; ! the 1 " wreck -of ' the. At- ... .lantic, Mr Mark Twain has written: the fol- ;■ lowing letter : — .; ,;.;.,.,,,> !, '"■■'■' -When the Mississipi was burned! at' sea some time ago, and nearly : all her boats • were, smashed fl in .the effort ; to cast them; loose, or were swamped the instant they struck the water, I wrote a, letter, suggesting '"■' that ships be provided wilih life rafts instead .of these almost useless boats; I didnot ext .. pect .that the, Government* wonldr jump at the suggestion, and I w.as^not, disappointed. The Government had business on band at' • the time which would benefit ' not only 1 our -nation, but the whole 1 world— l 'mean the project; of .paying Cpngressmen:,over, again for work which they had already been paid to „, do: -that is. to say, r the; labor. of receivii|g ' Credit, Mpbiiier dpnatipns and forgetting tne ' cironmstance. But! that shining public bene- , • ' 'fit being accomplished; why cannot '-'the Go- ! vernment Jisten to me now?; The Atlaatic '■, ' ' had eight boats, of course— all have— Not one of the boats saved a human • life. The' great cumbersome things were i i shivered to atoms by the seas that swept over the stranded vessel. > And suppose they had, not been shivered,, would .the.case have' ; been betxer ? Would not the frantic people have plunged pell-mell into each boat as it. / was ■ launched 1 '■■'''■■ They i always do. But a ; . life-raft is a different : thing. r All-the people. I you can put on it cannot swamp it.. r,Nobody ' understands davit-falls but' a sailor ; and he :: don't when he gets frightened ; butrany ■ • -^gobse can heave a life-raft overboardj .i and. -.-•■ then some wise man can tlirow-him after it. The sort of life-raft I have in my mind is an American invention, consisting of 3 inflated i horizontal india-rubberltubes, with a platform on top. These rafts, are of all sizes, from a • K \ little affair the :aiz6 of /your back door to a raft 22ft long and 6ft or Bft wide. As you (.[■i remember,; no doubt, two men; crossed the Atlantic from New York to London, some years ago, on one of these i rafts of the latter Bize. That ratt would carry 120 men; Nine i r\ such; rafts would have jaavedrthe Atlantic's 1000 souls', and these rafts, fully inflated ready for use, would ;not have occupied as much room on her deck as four of herlub- , berly boats;' hardly: more; ithaa the room of three of h«r boats, indeed. Her boats ;Were { r .. ( ..probaply 30ft. long, 7ft deep;: and-;7ft or.Sffc '" wide at the gunwales. You could furnish a ship with medium and full-sized rafts— an, of each — and-pile-them upTiii the space now occupied, by four boats, and then you- could expect to save all her people, not merely a dozen or two. They! would sail away through a storm, sitting : high and ■ • dry from two to four feet ,'above^tKe tops of tHe waves. In addition. Vp the 'rafts, the •■ ship could carry a boat or, twp for promisi ■'■' cuous general service, kaAjioi the 1 ' drowmng' ' > of old fogies i who like pld-established ways. >' Youcould attach arafttd a'ship witli aten-' fathom line and heave it overboard ion the ■■■•■ lee side in the roughest 'sea and it caa't : f all i! .:'ahy way but right side ; upland' thorp lit-'will j lie and ride the waves' like ! a'duck till it receives its freight of f opd.and passengers— and then you can cut the-.line and let . her go; . X: ''But if you launch :aboat, it usually falls up^' side down; and if it don't, the people srowd --.-- in and swamp it. Boats have sometimes gpne: away safely with people and taken them to land, but such accidents are rare. : ' I ■ / am,riot giving you 'a^ 'mere landsman's views upon this raft business ; they are. the views „ of several old seacaptains and mates whom I have talked with, and their voice gives .. them = weight , and value. Our Government has so many important things to attend to that we cannot reasonably expect it to bother .•: with Ufe-rafts, and we cannot reasonably exj ; pect .the English.. Government to. bother wiiH them, because this admirable contrivance is a Yankee invention, and our mother i ;;is not given to adopting our inventions until aiie haa had time to hunt around ampngaer documents and discover,, that ; the crude ' ideajoriginated with herself in some- bygone time, then she. adopts it and builds a monument to the crude originator. England has .onrlife-raft.pn exhibition in amuseuniipverthere (the raft that, rnads, the wonderful '• voyage), and heaps of people of people-have' j , , goue in every day for several . years andpaid: 1 ipr, the privilege of > looking at it. Perhaps- • i&any'a bereaved poor/, soul, whose idols '&& 's^srk dnd dead , under ■ .the wayes that wash ■'■i 'the beacl t Pf'NoVa Scotia .may .wish, as I do, 'that it had been on exhibition on board the Atlantic. r „ , •;.,-.; ; /.;;.•;.•]