A Remarkable Career.

Hastings Standard, Issue 26, 27 May 1896, Page 4

A Remarkable Career.

Peart, the diver, who met a sensational death in Sydney the other day appears to have had a remarkable career. He was born just outside of London and was 26 years of age. For some time he served on a man-of-war. His initial public appearance was made about 1896, at Birmingham, where he challenged all comers at a diving match. This he won. His first leap was 45 feet. The late Colonel North, who was a man of keen sporting instincts, then took him under his patronage. The nest leap outdistanced the other by 25 feet. Flushed with success, Peart proceeded to Paris, beat four Frenchmen who w r ere pitted in turn against him, and annexed the champion-hip of France. His best dive was 90 feet. Leaving Paris he went to Russia, and before the Czar and Czarina at Odessa he made a dive of 125 feet, eclipsing all his previous records. The Czar recognised his brilliant feat by presenting him with a gold medal." Thenceforward Peart's career was a succession of triumphs. He went off io Morocco and exhibited in the Sultan's palace grounds ; returned to London and did a dive of l:i'» feet, and travelled once more to Paris. Afterwards he steamed to South America, and exhibited in several cities there. The» he drifted to South Africa, taking the laurels from the champions at Johannesburg. At Antwerp he crushed ail co:npetitors in Holland. His next notable feat was a dive of 187 feet that he made from the Tyne Bridge. In -January of last year he surpassed all his performances by successfully accomplishing a venture that brought about the death of Ben Fuller a fewmonths before. He leapt from the Tower Bridge, London, into the Thames, a distance of 227 feet. In Melbourne he dived 135 fuet, and this was his most remarkable effort in Australia. Singular enough for a man who indulged in sensational work of this kind—work requiring the keenest sight—Peart was a one-eyed man' He lost the sight of it many years ago probably when he was a inan-o'-war's man in the British navy.