HOW TO PREVENT DROWNING.

Clutha Leader, Volume VIII, Issue 415, 23 September 1881, Page 7

HOW TO PREVENT DROWNING.

(From Popular Science Monthly for July.)

I wish to show how drowning might, under ordinary circumstances, be avoided, even in the case of persons otherwise wholly ignorant of what is called the art of- swimming. The numerous frightful casualties render every working suggestion of importance, and that which I .here offer I venture to think is entirely available.

When one of the inferior animals takes the water, falls or is thrown in it instantly begins to walk as it does when out of the water. But, when a man who cannot ' swim ' falls into the water, he makes a few spasmodic struggles, . throws up his arms, and drowns. The brute, on the' other hand, treads water, remains on the surface, and is virtually insubmergible. tn order, then, to escape drowning",, it is only necessary to do as the brute does, and that is to tread or walk the water. The brute has no advantage in regard of, .his relative weight, in respect of the water, over man, and yet the man perishes, while the brute lives. Nevertheless, any man, any woman, any child who cab. walk on the land may also walk in the water, just as readily as the animal does, if only he will, and that without any prior instruction or drilling whatever.: Throw a dog into the water, and he treads or walks the water instantly, and there is no imaginable reason w£y a human being, under like circutfistances, should not do as the dog does. The brute, indeed, walks in the water instinctively, whereas the man has to be told. The ignorance of so: simple a possibility, namely, the possibility of treading water, strikes me as one of the most singular things in the history of man, and speaks very little indeed for his- intelligence. " He is, r in- fact, as ignorant on the subject as is the newborn babe. Perhaps something is to be ascribed to the vague meaning which is attached to the word swim. When. a man swims it ■means one thing, when a dog swims it means another .and quite a differeent act. The dog is wholly incapable of swimming as a man swims ; but nothing is more certain, than that a man is capable of 'swimming, and on the instant, too, as a dog swims, without any, previous training or instruction, ah d that by so doiri^ without fear 1 or hesitance 1 , hewillrbe just as safe in the water as the dog is.

The brute' in the water continues to go on all fours, and the man who. to gave his ; lite, /and. ; cannot otherwise swim, must do so too, strik- j ing alternately.,; one -two/, one two, but; without hurry or pjecipitation, with; hand and foot, exactly as the brute j doe*. Whether he be provided with; paw or hoof, the brute swims with the; greatest ease and buoyancy, Thej human being, if he will, can do so too,j with the further immense advantage of: having a paddle-formed hand, and of; being able to rest himself when tired* by floating, a thing of which the animal} has no conception. Bridget Money, aj poor Irish immigrant, saved her ownj life, and her three children's lives,; when the steamer conveying them toot fire on Lake Erie, by floating herself, and making them float, which simplyj consists in lying quite still, with the mouth shut and the head thrown back' in the wa'er. The dog, the horse, the, cow, the swine, the deer, and even the cat, all take to the water on occasion] and sustain themselves perfectly with-; out any prior experience whatever! Nothing is less diflicult, whether for man or brute, than to tread water for even the the first time. 1 have done so often, using the feet alone, or the hands alone, ob the whole four many

times, with perhaps~one of my "cbildrpn on my back. Once I recollect being carried a good way out to-sea' by the receding tide at Bou4ntrnp,.but retrained the shore without difficulty. A drop of water once passed through the rima of the glottis ; and on {mother occasion I experienced such sudden indisposition that if I had been -.unable to float, it must I think, have gone hard with me. Men and aDimals are able to sustain themselves for long distances in the water, and would do so much oftener were they not incapacitated, in regard of the former at least, by sheer torror, as well: asicomplete jgnorance of their real powers. Webb's wonderful endurance will never be forgotten. But there are other instances only less remarkable. Some years since, the second mate of a ship fell: overboard while, in the c ,act of fisting a sail. It was blowing fresh, the time was night, and the place some miles out in the stormy German Ocean. The hardy fellow gained the English Coast. Brock, with a dozen other pilots, was plying for fares by Yarmouth ; arid as the tnaihsheet was belayed, a sudden puff of. wind upset the boat, when presently all perished except Brock himself, who from four in the afternoon of an October evening to one the next morning, swam thirteen miles before he was able to hail a vessel at anchor in the offing. Animals themselves are capable of swimming immense distances, although to rest by the way. A dog recently swam thirty miles in America in order to rejoin his master. A mule and a dog washed overboard during a gale in the Bay of Biscay have been known to make their wav to shore. A dog swam ashore with a letter in his mouth at the Gape of Good Hope, The crew of the ship to which the dog belonged all perished, which they need not, have done had they only ventured to tread the water as the dog did. As a certain ship was labouring heavily in the trough of the sea, it was found needful, in order to lighten the vessel, to throw some troop horses overboard, which had been taken in at Corunna. The poor things, my informant, a staff sergeant, told me, when they found themselves abandoned, faced round and swam for miles after the vessel. A man on the coast of Lincolnshire saved a number of lives by swimming on horseback to vessels in distress. He roie an old <;ry nr;a c, but when the mare was not to hand, he took the first horse that offered.

The loss of life from shipwreck, boating, bathing 1 , skating, fishing, and accidental immersion is so disastrously great that every feasible procedure calculated to avert it ought to be had recourse to. People will not consent to wear life-preservers, but, if they only knew that in their own limbs, properly used, they possessed the most efficient of life-preservers, they would most likely avail themselves of them. Ta every school, every house, there ought to be a slate tank of sufficient depth with a trickle of water at one end and a siphon, at the other, in order to keep it pure. A pail or two of hot water would a*", any time render the contents sufficiently warm. In such a tank every child from the time it could walk ought to be made to tread water daily. Every adult, when the opportunity presents itself, should do so. The printed injunction should be pasted up on all boat-houses, on every boat, at every bathing jplace, and in .every school. * Tread water when you find yourself out of your, depth ' is, all that need be said, unless, indeed, <we add, 'Float when you are tired. ? ; - Every one, of whatever age or sex, 01 however encumbered with clothing, might tread water with as much facility, even in a breaking sea, as a four-footed animal does: The position of a person who treads water is, in other respects, very much' safer' and better than is the sprawling attitude which we assume in ordinary swimming. And then. the beauty of it is that we can tread water without any preliminary teaching, whereas ' to swim,' involves time and pains, entails considerable fatigue, and is .seldom Adequately acquired after all.

The fi^dians on the Missouri River, when .they haye ■ occasion to' traverse that impetuous stream; invariably treads the water -just 1 as the dog treads it. The na.tiyeß,,of; Jonna, an .island on the coast of Madagascar, ■ young..perspns of both "sexes Walk 'the 11 wateiy carrying fr.u.i.t and; vegetables ; to ships becalmed, or it may be lyin~g:-to, 'in 1 ' the. offing 1 miles away. Some - Kroomen whose 'c^hpe^/up^t^befOre-iny'ojes-'in the seaway on the ..coa t of : Ajfrica'y^walked the watery to the-saie- keeping: of: their lives, with th i eil\iimpaX i f^\\ity : X-'a.nd l I wit- 1 nessed negro children, on other occasions going : so-,at;.a very tender age. At Madras, watching their opportunity, messengers, with letters secured in an oil-skin cap, plunge into the boiling surf r and .make their way treacling the water. to the vessels outside, through a sea in which an ordinary European. boat will not live 7 At the Cape of Good Hope men used to proceed to the vessels in the offing through the mountain billows, treading the, water as they went with the* utmost ' security. And yet here, on our own. shores, and amid smooth waters, men, . w.omen, and children perish like flies annually, when a'.;little lf prqperly directed- effort — treading t.he water, asrT 'have said — would haply 1 suffice to rescue them' every, one. '

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