Indeed, in no branch of the government service is stricter discipline and closer attention to duty insisted upon than is demanded from the brave and devoted men who tend our lighthouses. The pay of these keepers ranges from $1,000 to $100, the average, by an Act of Congress passed some years ago, being $600. The Lighthouse Board, which controls the service, selects as keepers the best men obtainable, preference being always given to men who have served for lengthy periods in the army and navy. Members of this class know what discipline means, and hard experience has taught them that orders are to be obeyed to the letter. Many an old veteran, whose scars tell of valiant service in the Civil War or on the Western frontier, and many an old shipmaster or mate, whose weather-beaten face bespeaks long years spent on the quarter-deck, as lighthouse keepers now do duty on solitary and barren beacon rocks, where for months at a time, aside from their own voices and those of their families, the roar and moan of the ocean, as it beats against the breakers below, are the only sounds that are heard. The life of the keeper--though many who follow it seem wholly contented with it, and doubtless would not leave it for any other calling--is thus a lonely and arduous one. Two breaches of the rules which govern the keeper's conduct bring as a penalty immediate dismissal from the service. The absence of a light for a single moment may bring disaster to life and property on the seas, and neither excuse nor previous good conduct can save from instant dismissal the keeper who allows his light to go out. He may plead that his wife or child was dying, but he is told that he must subordinate his light to nothing. And he must not only keep his light burning, but stay by it so long as the lighthouse stands. Some years ago an ice pack lifted from its foundations, overturned and carried away the Sharp's Island lighthouse in Chesapeake Bay. The two keepers had a staunch boat and could have made their way to shore. Instead, they bravely chose to remain at their post of duty, and for sixteen hours, without food or fire, drifted with the wreck at the mercy of the ice cakes. When the wreck finally grounded the keepers carried ashore all the movable portions of the light, the oil, and everything else they could take with them. At the same time the keepers of another light, fearing danger, left their post and went ashore. They pleaded that the ice had rendered the light useless for the time being, but this excuse had no weight with their superiors. They had proven recreant to their trust and were dismissed from the service, the places they had filled being given to the two keepers who had refused to leave their post of duty, even when to remain seemed certain death. Drunkenness, when detected, also leads to removal from the service. That and allowing one's light to go out are the two unpardonable sins in the eyes of the lighthouse inspector.