LECTURE BY HON, A. K. PECK

The Hon. Arthur K. Peck delivered a lecture last night in the Union on "The Storm Heroes of Our Coast." The lecture was illustrated by excellent colored slides, which rendered the realistic descriptions still more interesting to the large audience.

Mr. Peck spoke first of numerous disasters along the coast, describing vividly the storm of November, 1898, in which the life-saving crews had not only to perform their usual duty of saving shipwrecked crews, but also to rescue cottagers, whose homes were demolished. In that storm the entire crew of the pilot-boat "Columbia" was lost, and the wreck is now on exhibition at Scituate. Mr. Peck showed numerous pictures of surf to demonstrate the dangers undergone in launching life-boats. One of the slides was a fac-simile of a letter written by the keeper of Minot's Ledge lighthouse, stating that the waves had at times been thrown 20 feet above the ocean.

The lecturer next described the training and daily routine of a life-saver. The men must pass civil service examinations and severe annual physical tests. The pay is small and the work proportionally hard, for two men are always on patrol duty at night and on foggy days, and no matter what the weather is, they must remain out four hours at a time. Frequent drills are held with the self-righting and self-bailing boats and with the breeches-buoy.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the lecture was that in which actual rescues were vividly described with slides to illustrate some of the most thrilling experiences of a life-saver's career, including almost incredulous accounts of hardship and suffering.