13 



standing this, 416 out of 522 on board were drowned. 

 One account states that " the people in the boats had to 

 repulse the drowning to prevent over-filling. Of the four 

 starboard boats that got off one capsized." " One boat," 

 says another account, "was lowered, and capsized im- 

 mediately. The second one also capsized, and all who 

 were in it, chiefly women, were drowned." " Boat 3 capsized 

 with about thirty inmates, a few of whom saved themselves 

 by taking refuge in the rigging. The highest praise must 

 be given to the ship's captain, officers, and the whole of the 

 crew, most of whom perished in endeavouring to save the 

 passengers and to do their duty." 



On the 2nd February last the steamship Kenmure Castle 

 bound from London to Shanghai, foundered in a gale in 

 the Bay of Biscay. One boat only could be launched ; 

 one man only of the ten Europeans belonging to the crew 

 was saved. The captain, first and third mates, and twenty- 

 three Chinamen belonging to the crew perished. Eight of 

 the passengers, including several ladies, were saved, and 

 endured horrible sufferings from hunger and thirst, and 

 cold and nakedness, during exposure for three days and 

 two nights in an open boat. " The crew were in the act 

 of launching the lifeboat when the ship went down." 



The illustrations given, which could be extended in- 

 definitely, may be taken as sufficing to prove that boats, 

 or any other appliances for saving life at sea, in cases of 

 fire, foundering, collision, or wreck from whatever cause, 

 are not supplied to an adequate extent, and that they are 

 inefficient and unworthy of confidence in their capabilities 

 to perform even partial and fractional service. We proceed 

 to consider, 



II. The distinctive qualities and capabilities that such 

 improved means should possess. 



