The shocking wreck of the Orion—not, we say with sorrow, the last occurrence of the kind—startled, for a moment, the public from their culpable apathy. But the shock passed away; and attention to this subject is gradually subsiding into the usual indifference. The details of this catastrophe ought to have had a more permanent effect on the public mind. In the moment of danger, the gear of the boats was so imperfect, that these could only be released from their davits by capsizing their human cargoes into the deep. Even when they righted, they immediately filled, for the plug-holes were actually unstopped. The most ordinary precautions for saving life were not at hand, as precautions. The hen-coops, barrels, seats, combings, and other means of escape, by which many were saved, were purely accidental life-preservers. Every English ship, before leaving port, should be submitted to a supervising power similar to the inspection that emigrant ships undergo, in order that it should be certified that means, both simple and efficacious, for the safety of the passengers and crew, exist on board—boats, belts, mattresses, rafts; everything, in short, that can add to the security of those about to “go down to the sea in ships.” That this sort of supervision is effectual, is proved by the few disasters which happen to the vessels of the Royal Navy. In these ships, everything is not only kept in its proper place, to be ready when wanted, but each man is constantly exercised in what he is to do with it when no danger is apprehended, that he may be in a state of prompt efficiency when it is. The Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean squadron can step on board any one of his ships in the middle of the night; and although three-fourths of its crew are asleep in their hammocks, he can, by ordering the “beat to quarters,” make sure of every man being at his post in seven minutes, ready for action or for any sudden disaster. This sort of discipline it is which is so much required in the merchant navy. In case of a ship striking, a dozen men rush to do one thing,—perhaps to release a boat from one of her davits,—and, consequently, swamp the boat, by leaving the stern rope untouched. Captain Basil Hall, in his “Fragments of Voyages and Travels,” describes the vigilant precaution daily made even against the loss of one life. To each life-buoy there is as regular a “service” as to any other part or apparatus of the ship. He says:—