HEROISM REWARDED.

Bush Advocate, Volume V, Issue 354, 16 August 1890, Page 8

HEROISM REWARDED.

The report *oi' tho Royal Humane Society for the .past your, as usual, containn sonw very choice lcailitifr. The choicest is, oi course* to bo found in tho list of silver medal cases,, though that oi' the bronze exhil>its^ a j ' degree of heroism which nono but t.ho.*o who are to the manner born of courage or selt■facrifioe might ever hope to emulate. The silver award distinguishes thooe persons •who havo ottered absolutely to # throw away their own lives iv suing the lives of others, 11 -id who have only escaped by shp.T y-vyX luck. At Singapore last y*'tr 7hi\ Meyer desui-iuied into a o) T lindev fillc".! with ckokim? gas to pick up two men who lay ins»eniil»lo at the uottora. His dangev may b. 1 iuf>.'.rrcd fnr.u the fact that he brought, tin? niou to the i-uv-t'aco dying or dfad, and his -hcvu'iMn from lib perfect knowledge of the rbk he ran. &V. 1 this he received both tJw3 silwv isiwlnl und the grold. The society look.s out toi- gaihvuti-y of this sort wherever our fl«g iioats, and rewards it without distinction of persnus, nationalities, or crowds. la one •cw.u. ic "bestows the modal on a soldit j r-si:rv,uit. who supported a drowning woman ;nid ;t b-»a".---inan in the water until help ro.vched a-U three. T'vmi »•. Poor of tho lienhu is not neglected when he behaves himself p'«periy by land or water. Thus the Marquis of Breadalbane receives a medal for one of the most desperate acts of resouo recorded iv the report. He was shooting iv the grounds j ■of Taymouth Castle \vhon a boa: containing two beaters capsized in a rushing stream. One mac was able to swim ar-hore, the other was seen to be in danger of his life. The Marquis plunged in for him, but missed. He then ranjdowu the bank to make another attempt. Whatever was dono now had to be done quickly, for the beater was being swept along towards a deep whirlpool surrounded by rocks. This time, however., the Marquis frripped him, an«l never let go uutil he had him Bafe ashore. Hubert Piers, an officer of the Garth | Castle, jumps intu-a sea infested by sharks, to lescne & lunatic who has momentarily escaped from custody and thrown himself overboard. The uiihappy creaturo "dives" several times to avoid his impending tatc of . rescue.; bat rescue it is to be. Mr. Piers holds on to him till both are saved. Who knows— perha ps in the long run it may prove to havo been a rescue of reason as well aa of life ! If kindness ' h curative in canes of this sort, why not that exalted form of it which must have been the animating principle of this noble deed ! One of tho medallists of the year, in lowering himself from a ship in port to ronc"h a drowning man, had his foot crushed between the ship's sido and the dock wall. > He held on all the same, and saved his man, though he had to lose his own foot by amputation the. same night. Ho is now a cripple for life. The society has given him a medal, amd iperhaps the society can do no more ; but one would like to hear that other things needful had been provided by public . «harity. James Craig, of Newcastle, is an old offender against, all the laws of prudence, in regard to the care of No. 1. He is always saving other people's lives — sometimes in a manner that is positively uncalled-for, seeing that it presents no reasonable prospect of tho preservation of hia 0 <srn. His laßt exploit was : to pluck a romping urchin. from the riv. ; _* Ousburne, after he had sunk twice. . To tw oh the urchin ho had to jump from a window 18ft. high into a yard below, then to clear a high wall, then to run 50yds. and take another wall, and, finally, to dive a distance of 12ft. into the water, just in time to pluok up drowning foolishness by the locks. Miss Hackett closes the list of honour for the year. She rushed into the water at Shankhill, near Dublin, to help a drowning girl ; but finding her own clothes , in her way, she returned to remove a portion of them. <Then she swam out a second time, and, in-spite of tho girl's spasmodic efforts to drag her down, caught her and kept her up till a boat brought both ashore.