The Project Gutenberg EBook of Saved by the Lifeboat, by R.M. Ballantyne

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Title: Saved by the Lifeboat

Author: R.M. Ballantyne

Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23385]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAVED BY THE LIFEBOAT ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Saved by the Lifeboat, by R.M. Ballantyne.

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This book is mainly to describe the lifeboat service, and how private
individuals can donate the money for building a new lifeboat.

We start off with a wreck just occurring near a little seaside village,
and how the local men rushed down to the beach to do what they could to
save life. We then move to the offices of a mean grasping shipowner,
who will do anything to avoid properly equipping his ships with what
they would need if disaster struck. Eventually he is brought to a more
sensible state of mind, and donates money for a new lifeboat.

There is a good fund-raising chapter, and it is interesting how very
much the same today's appeals for the lifeboat service are, though of
course today's lifeboat is a very different item to the lifeboats of
over a hundred years ago.

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SAVED BY THE LIFEBOAT, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.

CHAPTER ONE.

THE WRECK IN THE BAY.

On a dark November afternoon, not many years ago, Captain Boyns sat
smoking his pipe in his own chimney-corner, gazing with a somewhat
anxious expression at the fire. There was cause for anxiety, for there
raged at the time one of the fiercest storms that ever blew on the
shores of England.

The wind was howling in the chimney with wild fury; slates and tiles
were being swept off the roofs of the fishermen's huts and whirled up
into the air as if they had been chips of wood; and rain swept down and
along the ground in great sheets of water, or whirled madly in the air
and mingled with the salt spray that came direct from the English
Channel; while, high and loud above all other sounds, rose the loud
plunging roar of the mighty sea.

"I fear there will be a call bef