An inquiry was held, and revealed a sad laxity of duty in the appointed keeper. He ought to have lived at the tower, but he did not. Such a residence, when we consider the position of the Caister lighthouse, must have been solitary and dreary enough, and we can scarcely wonder that the keeper left his employment and went to labour more congenial. But he was dishonest over his retirement: he did not put his intention into writing, but went off without notice, and deputed ‘the preparing, lighting, and watching’ of the candles to an old and decrepid woman who dwelt some miles inland, and who, as might have been expected, was unable to perform her task with regularity. To reach the lighthouse, she had a lengthy walk; and in the teeth of an easterly gale she found this more than her strength could bear; thus on many a winter’s night she had to retrace her steps without accomplishing the object of her journey: so that often when most needed no light at all showed from the Caister lighthouse. A new keeper was appointed; he was to live at the lighthouse, to light his candles—three in number—at sunset, snuff them, and replenish them as needful till ‘fair day.’ Surely a lighthouse, well and regularly tended, was needed at Caister! There was not, there is not, a more dangerous bit of coast on the eastern shore of England. Caister sandbanks rival the dreaded Goodwins in their terrors for the luckless ship that is driven upon them. Now, with a good system of signalling from the adjacent lightships, and with two or three well-appointed lifeboats, the loss of life is often considerable, and many are the risks run by the lifeboat crews in their gallant efforts to rescue the shipwrecked. Here is the story of one such risk, and it is typical of dozens more that have happened since lifeboats have been placed near Caister.