amongst the brigade men, for they saw that she must be smashed into
matchwood in five minutes. The rockets were got ready; but before a shot
could be fired the ill-fated vessel gave way totally. A great sea rushed
along the side of the pier, and the pilot saw something black amongst
the travelling water. "There's a man!" he shouted; and without a
moment's thought plunged in, calling on the other fellows to pitch him a
rope. Had he tied a line around his waist before he jumped he would have
been all right. As it was, the Dutchman whom he tried to save was washed
clean on to the pier and put safely to bed in the brigade-house. The
pilot was not found until two days afterwards.

AN UGLY CONTRAST.

The steam-tug "Alice," laden with excursionists from several Tyneside
towns, struck in the autumn of 1882 on the Bondicar Rocks, sixteen miles
north of Blyth. The boat was not much damaged, and could easily have
been run into the Coquet River within a very few minutes if the
passengers had only kept steady. But the modern English spirit came upon
the men, and a rush was made for the boat. Women and children were
hustled aside; and the captain of the tug had to threaten certain
persons of his own sex with violence before he could keep the crowd
back. Some twenty-seven people clambered into the boat, and then a man
of genius cut away the head-rope, and flung the helpless screaming
company into the sea. Twenty-five of them were drowned. It will be a
relief if time reveals any ground of hope that the men of our
manufacturing towns will lose no more of the virtues which we used to
think a part of the English character--coolness and steadiness and
unselfishness in times of danger, for example. The Englishmen who live
in quiet places have not become cowardly, so far as is ascertained; nor
are they liable to womanish panic. In the dales and in the
fishing-villages along our north-east coast may still be found plenty
of brave men. Where such disgraceful scenes as that rush to the
"Alice's" boat are witnessed, or selfishness like that of the men who
got away in the boats of the "Northfleet," there we generally find that
the civilization of towns has proved fatal to coolness and courage.

Curiously enough, it happens that within six miles of the rock where the
"Alice" struck, a splendidly brave thing was done, which serves in
itself to illustrate the difference that is growing up between the race
that lives by the factory and th