Equally sad, and similar to that given by Sir W. Hillary, was the evidence as to the faulty construction of many of the boats, inasmuch as although they were a decided improvement upon the ordinary boat, yet they too often proved incompetent to contend against the rush of seas and broken water to which they were exposed; from this cause the most painful tragedies frequently occurred, the loss of brave fellows who went out to save others from a dreadful death, and who through no lack of courage, of strength, or of skill, on their part, but from the faulty construction of the boat they were in, found one common grave with those whom they sought to rescue from the raging seas. Thus one life-boat gained a most sad notoriety: on one occasion she drowned four of her crew; on another occasion twelve; and on a third, twenty men were drowned out of her. A second, so called, life-boat lost on one occasion two men, on a second three men, and on a third all her crew; when she was most properly condemned as too dangerous to be of use. A Scarborough life-boat lost sixteen men. At Dunbar, on the occasion of a man-of-war being wrecked, the life-boat in two trips saved forty-five men; on her third trip she upset, and nearly all who were in her were drowned; she was condemned, and for many years no life-boat at all was stationed there, although from time to time many lives were lost. Thus we find that in the year 1850 life-boat work was no unknown work. Life-boat societies had done much, and were doing much. Life-boats had been stationed in various localities during the preceding half century, and there were at the date mentioned seventy-five life-boats in England, eight in Scotland, and eight in Ireland; but nearly one-half of these were, from one cause or another, more or less unserviceable; and many of the most exposed parts of the coast were still unprovided with life-boats. In that year, 1850, there were six hundred and eighty-one wrecks: the loss of life was about seven hundred and eighty-four, including a crew of eleven men, whose boat upset one stormy November night, they having put off to the assistance of a vessel in distress. It was evident that the life-boat system was not sufficiently developed or general, and there was, moreover, no universally approved model of a boat in which all boatmen might have confidence; this latter consideration was especially brought before the notice of the public by an accident which occurred to the Newcastle life-boat, the sad particulars of which are given in the following extracts from a letter written December 14th, 1849, by the then treasurer of the life-boat "Friend of the Ports of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and South Shields," Mr. R. Anderson.