protects
the individual, but insurance cannot, in the nature of things, protect
the nation. If you drop a thousand sovereigns in the street, that is a
loss to you, but not to the nation; some lucky individual will find the
money and circulate it. But if you drop it into the sea, it is lost not
only to you, but to the nation, indeed to the world itself, for ever,--
of course taking for granted that our amphibious divers don't fish it up
again!

Well, let us gauge the value of our lifeboats in this light. If a
lifeboat saves a ship worth ten or twenty thousand sovereigns from
destruction, it presents that sum literally as a free gift to owners
_and_ nation. A free gift, I repeat, because lifeboats are provided
solely to save life--not property. Saving the latter is, therefore,
extraneous service. Of course it would be too much to expect our
gallant boatmen to volunteer to work the lifeboats, in the worst of
weather, at the imminent risk of their lives, unless they were also
allowed an occasional chance of earning salvage. Accordingly, when they
save a ship worth, say 20,000 pounds, they are entitled to put in a
claim on the owners for 200 pounds salvage. This sum would be divided
(after deducting all expenses, such as payments to helpers, hire of
horses, etcetera) between the men and the boat. Thus--deduct, say, 20
pounds expenses leaves 180 pounds to divide into fifteen shares; the
crew numbering thirteen men:--

+==================================+==========+
|13 shares to men at 12 pounds each|156 pounds|
+----------------------------------+----------+
|2 shares to boat |24 pounds |
+----------------------------------+----------+
|Total |180 pounds|
+==================================+==========+

Let us now consider the value of loaded ships.

Not very long ago a large Spanish ship was saved by one of our
lifeboats. She had grounded on a bank off the south coast of Ireland.
The captain and crew forsook her and escaped to land in their boats.
One man, however, was inadvertently left on board. Soon after, the wind
shifted; the ship slipped off the bank into deep water, and drifted to
the northward. Her doom appeared to be fixed, but the crew of the
Cahore lifeboat observed her, launched their boat, and, after a long
pull against wind and sea, boarded the ship and found her with seven
feet of water in the hold. The duty of the boat's crew was to save the
S