TALES AND SKETCHES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8674, 14 July 1906, Page 2

TALES AND SKETCHES.

FREAIC^ OF FATE. lagrlorieua Esftings of Hlwrtrimw O&reors and of Odrtratei Men. (By EX-ATTACHE? 1 in the New Orleans " Times-Democrat/) Involuntarily the death of Profeesor Curie, who was killed the ©the* day by Being run over by a heavy dray in the streets of Paris, recalls to mind the familiar lines of Johnson on the equally inglorious ending of the life of Charles XII., the most heroic figure in the histpry of Sweden, who Lost his life through a well-aimed musket shot, whUe besieging the little Norwegian town of Frederickehaw :— Hi* fall was 4&stine<l far ft foreign «*r*a<i» A prefty fo?tj-e?a «9«t «■ dubious hand; Ha loft « nam& at which the wprl# §r«w pal* To poijii a mvrail ov a&ora « t*l«. Professor Curie was undoubtedly the greatest scientist of the age«a man who could ill be ©pared by humanity, and who, in the words of one of hia biographers, wa« on© of those master--minds that have brought light into the world. ' Some papers? and American ones at tliat, do not hesitate even to declare that his death was a greater misfortune to mankind than, the recent calamity at San Francisco, for the rea*, eon that the potential aid of radium m combating cancer alone compensates, from the broad human viewpoint, the tragedy of any war, earthquake or fire. Yet radium was but one of Curie's discoveries, and engaged as he was at the. time of his death, in further exhaustive researches, there is no knowing what other hidden elements of Nature ho would have been able to reveal to us, bed fee BPt been run over by a brew* era 4r»y. JJANT PRECEDENTS. Yet such fates as that by which he has been overtaken are by no means rare among men who have made for themselves a name in history, and who have carved it oft the walls of the Temple of Fame. Indeed, fate seems sometimes to delight in reserving the most inglorious endings for the most brilliant of careers, and the case of Profes&or Curie has many precedents. Thus, who can forget the case 1 of that German scientist and explorer, Dr Schnitzler, who was so infinitely better known by hie Turkish name of Emm Pasha? When both England and Egypt withdrew from the Soudan in 1883, rather than attempt to hold it against the Mahdi, JSmin, who was Governor of one of the most important provinces, declined to withdraw, on the grouna that he could not bring himself to abandon to. the savagery of the Per* vishes all those natives who had remained faithful to his rule-— people whom he bed learned to love and admire, and who were far too numerous to be sent out of the country. For sev» cnal years Emjn waa cut~off from all intercourse with the outer world. Nothing certain was known aa W i his fate, and the information concerning him was. based on unfiupported and unreliable rumours to the effect that ho waa holding his own against the Mahdi and had checked his advance towards the south, The idea of thia white man fighting all alone in Central Africa for .the cause of civilisation against barbarism, without any support or encouragement from without, ended by appealing, not only to bis countrymen, but to all Europe and Amerioa. Popular sentiment in every part of the globe demanded that he should no longer be left to bis fate. Accordingly a costly expedition was equipped, regardless of expense, and placea under the command of the mofet famous African explorer of his day, namely, Sir Henry Stanley, for the purpose of finding and rescuing the gallant Emm. After a march from tue west coasx of Africa lasting nearly a year, Stanley finally came up with Emm on the banks of the Nile, near Lado, hard pressed by the Mahdi, but still able to hold his own. As Emm absolutely refused to be rescued or to desert his post, Stanley rtsorted to the h&roip measure of taking him away against his will, at the 6&me> time encouraging all the natives who had remained loyal to follow him in his march to the east coast of the Dark Continent. The rescue expedition ultimately reached Mombasa, the English seaport, 9n the African shore of the- Indian Ocean, where, with a view to reconcile Emm to his having been rescued " malgre lvi," he was overwhelmed with attentions, banquets and dinner* being given m his honour. It was on one of these festive oocasiona that Emm, gropiug his way along a dark corridor., walked out of a second storey, window into space, and broke his neck, thus dying in the most inglorious fashion before he could even start on his journey back to Europe to disclose himself to the people who had contributed; co liberally to his rescue, "and who had manifested such an absorbing interest in bis fate. DEATH 07 CAPTAIN SFBKHJ. . Equally strange was the death of "that other great African explorer, Captain John Spoke, who re-discovered the sources of the Nile— for they had been known to the ancients-— and who first brought to our knowledge the existence of those great inland ©ea& Lake Tanganyika and the Victoria Nyanza., After naving experienced the most extraordinary adventures, with hairbreadth escapes from savages and wild beasts in utterly unknown regions of the Dark Continent, he returned home to England, only to shoot himself ttccidflutaliy one day, while potting at rabbity at nia country place near Bath. It was a gunshot, too, that carried off Gambetta, one of the greatest statesmen that France produced during the nineteenth century. The mystery, which for a long time veiled the tragic ending of his career, has been recently solved, at any rate, in part. We now know that it was while endeavouring to prevent his Egeria from blowing out her brains, so that she should no longer be a drag on his success and an obstacle to his becoming President,, that he received the bullet she had intended for herself- He was struggling to wrench the pistol from her haud when it accidentally went oS, inflicting on his so dangerous a wound that he succumbed within forty-eight hours. SIB, JLOBEJVT PEEI». The great Sir Robert Peel, who was killed by a fall from his horse in the neighbourhood of Buckingham Palace, at the very height of his career, furnishes another illustration of the caprice of fate. The same may be said of the death of the famous Bishop, Samuel Wilberioaee, of Winchester, who, by reason of his &'7&ve and courtly ways, used to be known by the nickname of ' Soapy Sam." Kis life, it may be remembered 1 , was brought to a sudden close by a fall from his horse while out riding on the Epsom Do«rn« with the late Lord Granvolle. Lord Londonderry, who, while still Visoount CastleTeagh, Represented England at the International Congresses of Vienna and Verona> and who for many years directed the foreign polioy of England in his capacity of Secretary of State, cut his throat, driven thereto, it is said, by blackmailers, who managed to secure possession of some wost important documents, affecting not only his own honour, but that of others. WABSHAI BEBTHIEB. f The First Napoleon's most famous mar«hal, B&rtbier, Prince and Duka of W&gram, after passing unscathed not merely through all the long series of France's campaigns in Europe, but also through, the American war of indepw-

dence, serving in this country on the staff of Lafayette, killed himself by jumping out of a window in the- hotel where he was staying in the little Ger* man town of Bamberg, unable, it is declared, to bear any longer the ob" loquy tjxeited by his ungrateful desertion of that great Emperor to whom be owed his coronet, his marshal's baton and his great wealth.' Another of Napoleon's marshals to hurl himself out of a window and to break his neck, in some, obscure town in Illyria., in a fit of temporary insanii ty, was Jimot, Puke of Abranfces. Jt may be remembered that Junot had first attracted the notice oi Napoleon at the siege of Toulon by his historic remark when a shell burst close by, scattering sand over the despatch he was writing at the dictation of Napo-' leon: " Bien ! Voici 1© sable pour secher kenere!" (Here's the sand we need to dry the ink !) Marshal Ney, whom Napoleon was wont to describe as the bravest of the brave, was shot down as a traitor by a file of soldiers at Parig in 1819. His grandson and succeeeor, the brilliant cavalry General. Michael Ney, Duke of Elohingen, was found dead tnrough violence in a deserted house at Croiesy-on-the-Seine, near Paris, under circumstances such that neither the Franoh authorities nor his family have ever ventured to bring those, concerned in his death to justice, lest the kindly veil of mystery shrouding the ignoble circumstances of his ending should be rudely torn aside and the horror i&vealed. mttrat's end. Murat, brother-in-law of the First Napoleon, and the most efficient of all the many rulers of Naples, was not only shot down by a file of soldiers in 1810, but his head was cut from his body, in order that it might be shown to his Bourbon successor on the throne of Naples, before being oast beside his body into the unmarked grave, of which all trace has been lostThen there is Pushkine, the greatest of all Russia's poets, a sort of Muscovite combination of Byron, Shakespeare and Tennyson, alike in his gifts and his hold on the admiration of his fellowcountrymen, At the time of the birth of his youngest chijdj who afterwards became the morganatic wife of Prince Nidholas of Nassau, and _ who is now known as Countess Natalie of Merenberg, he received some anonymous letters assailing hor reputation. These led him to challenge his brother-in-law, Baron Heeckeren, after publicly striking him in the face, co that there cotild be no question of apology or reparation other than by recourse to arras. *In the duel which ensued, Heekeren wae badly wounded, but Pushkine was killed. To-day, every patriotic Russian thinks it necessary to spit on the ground in token of his execration whenever any mention is made in his presence of the abhorred) name of Heecker-e-n. who. by the by, was an illegitiimte. half-brother of Napoleon 111. Shelley, the famous poet, was but thirty years old when drowned near Iveghom through his boat being struck by a squall. The premature death of the brilliant, progressive and extraordinary popular Duke of Orleans, who broke his neck by falling, while intoxicated, from the carriage in which he wa6 returning from Neuilly after a regiment>al dinner, may be said to have brought about the downfall of his dynasty and to have changed the entire course of the history of France of the last sixty yaars. Hundreds of other instances of an. analogous character could be cited and will, doubtless, occur to my readers, but these mentioned will suffice to call attention once again to the freaks of fate in co often reserving the most inglorious endings for the oareere of the world's greatest men.