ssity. The Royal National
Life-boat Institution meets the want. It has now, in 1888, nearly 300
stations, all round the coast. The wreck chart, which is published
annually with the Society's Report, shows at a glance where wrecks are
most numerous, and there the boats of rescue are most required. It is
not only British coasting vessels that are thus provided for, but the
ships coming from foreign seas, and of all nations, as they crowd
towards our estuaries and ports, benefit by the lifeboat service.

On the 1st of March, 1867, the Prince of Wales took the chair at the
annual meeting of the Institution held, through the courtesy of the Lord
Mayor, in the Egyptian Hall of the Mansion House. Received in the State
Drawing-Room, by the chief magistrate of London, attended by the sword
and mace bearers of the Corporation, the Prince was thence conducted to
the Hall, where a numerous and distinguished company had assembled. On
taking the chair, the Prince said:--

"My Lord Mayor, my Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen,--It affords me
very great pleasure to occupy the chair to-day, upon so
interesting an occasion as the present. Among the many
benevolent and charitable institutions of this country there
are, I think, few which demand our sympathy and support more,
and in which we can feel more interest, than the National
Life-boat Institution. An institution of this kind is an
absolute necessity in a great maritime country like ours. It is
wholly different in one respect from other institutions, because
although lives are to be saved, they can in those cases in which
this society operates only be saved at the risk of the loss of
other lives. I am happy to be able to congratulate the
Institution upon its high state of efficiency at the present
moment, and upon the fact that by its means very nearly one
thousand lives have been saved in the course of the past year.

"Lifeboats have been given by many benevolent individuals--some
as thank-offerings from the friends of those whose lives have
been saved, and others in memory of those who are unhappily no
more. I am happy also to be able to say that lifeboats do not
only exist upon our coast, but that our great example in this
matter has been imitated by many foreign maritime countries, and
they have chosen our institution as the model for their own. I
beg upon this occasion to tender, in the nam