This book is mainly to describe the lifeboat service, and how private individuals can donate the money for building a new lifeboat. We start off with a wreck just occurring near a little seaside village, and how the local men rushed down to the beach to do what they could to save life. We then move to the offices of a mean grasping shipowner, who will do anything to avoid properly equipping his ships with what they would need if disaster struck. Eventually he is brought to a more sensible state of mind, and donates money for a new lifeboat. There is a good fund-raising chapter, and it is interesting how very much the same today's appeals for the lifeboat service are, though of course today's lifeboat is a very different item to the lifeboats of over a hundred years ago. The frontispiece does not properly belong to this book, but comes from "The Lifeboat", also by Ballantyne. First publised 1869.