Compulsory survey and no overloading were Mr. Plimsoll’s main remedies for the prevention of the terrible loss of life in the mercantile marine. He cites two cases of great firms—the first engaged in the coal carrying, and the second in the guano trade—who do not permit overloading, and the first, in fifteen years had not, out of a large fleet of steamers, lost a single vessel, although they made from fifty to seventy double trips per annum. And yet the voyage from the Thames to the Tyne is more dangerous than an over-sea voyage. There are a whole crowd of dangerous shoals off the Essex coast alone, to be avoided or steered between, as the case may be, as soon as the ship leaves the Thames, followed by equal dangers on the Suffolk and Norfolk coasts. The latter sands are all under water even when the tide is at ebb, but there is not water enough on them to float a ship; hence the losses when ill-found, overloaded, and undermanned vessels get on them. Further north there are others, and then come the dangerous rocky coasts of Yorkshire and Durham. The second case deserves particular mention. About the year 1860, the firm of Anthony Gibbs and Co., of London, took a contract from the Peruvian Government to charter and load ships from the Chincha Islands with guano, and as many as three or four hundred ships left those islands annually for different parts of the world. At first they were allowed to load and proceed to sea without inspection or surveying, and were permitted to load as deeply as the masters thought fit. What was the result? Accidents and losses were reported every few days, and many of their ships foundered at sea, some with all hands on board. When the head of the house at Lima, Peru, introduced proper surveying before loading, to discover what repairs were needed, &c., allowing no overloading, and not permitting the ships to go to sea without full inspection of her pumps and gear, a sudden and wonderful change took place, and for years after not one of these ships foundered at sea. [Illustration: EXTERIOR OF LLOYD’S.]