HAIR-BREADTH ESCAPES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1921, 11 December 1890, Page 36

HAIR-BREADTH ESCAPES.

For hair- breadth escapes from danger it is not necessary to dive into the depths of fiction.

The ordinary weekly newspaper usually provides numerous examples, and an observant reader can in the course of a few years collect instances which, but for the fact that they are backed up by strong proof, would put our credulity to a severe test. Strange that while one man will break his leg in getting out of his carriage, another may * fall 50ft unhurt.

Not long' ago a steamer was coming up Channel, when a seaman engaged in taking in the foresail fell backward off the yard on t o the deck some 50f fc. In his very rapid descent he snatched a rope which was hangig from the rigging, turned a complete somersault, and alighted on his feet on the <eck absolutely uninjured. In five minutes r.c was up aloft again as though nothing • 'traordinary had occurred.

Comparatively recently, too, a bricklayer % imaged in repairing the spire of a church fell from a height of 132 ft. So violent was his fall that he struck the battlements with such force as not only to fracture his leg, but to bring much stonework to the ground with him.

Except for the damage to his leg, he was actually unhurt in every respect, although many men have been killed from a fall of 10ft.

There is another remarkable kind of narrow escape from death, Which will be well understood by every person who has in his mind's eye the gigantic dome of St. Paul's Cathedral.

One one occasion an architect was engaged in measuring the top of the dome for a eectional drawing he was making. Intensely absorbed in his work, he forgot ihe nature of his position, and to his horror suddenly found that he was slipping down the globular suiface.

Faster and faster he fell. Spectators in Ludgate Hill watched the man in his awful predicament, and they feared that every second would dash him to his doom. Suddenly he was seen to make a grab with his right band, and then l:e stopped. He afterwards narrated how he had managed to clutch one small projecting clump of lead, and to this he hung for what seemed to him like a lifetime, until he was rescued.

Almost as horrible as death from a fall from a great height, must be the sensation of being swallowed up by what are known as sinking sands. Not long since a lady and an officer were riding upon that wellknown stretch of land which lies between Penmaenmawr and Conway.

Visitors to Mr Gladstone's favourite watering place will know that the sands thereabout have the reputation for treasure, and as the couple were canierins: along they noticed p nerulbr wi^rees < n tK- Mvfirx /</ <- U'O he \r'n

They F^nvrp'l Their pace from a center to a walk, and had hardly done ?o when their •horses sunk to their saddla trirtns.

The officer at once realised the danger of the position, jumped off his horse, and by dint of great effort managed to reach his sister.

A volunteer who had witnessed the difficulty promptly rendered help, and after great difficulty the lady and the animal were rescued. The rescuer mounted the horse md was despatched for farther aid. Meanwhile, the other steed had almost dii«

appeared, and when the relieving party arrived the officer had to be dragged out of the quicksand, and finally, after a long struggle, the horse was rescued. Many cows and sheep are said to have been lost in this same place, and it seems inexousable that on a coast so thronged with visitors, no warning notice of the quicksand is to be seen.

On one occasion a nurse at a Glasgow hospital was walking along a pathway leading to one of the wards when, to her great Burprise, the ground suddenly gave way under her. She sank to the armpits, being completely wedged in by the subsiding soil.

On being extricated from her dangerous position, it was found that .the woman had actually been suspended by the arms over a pit some 160 ft deep. It seems that the mouth of the pit had been merely covered ie with wood, which in course of time had grown rotten, with the result described.

Even royalty does not seem free from narrow escapes.

Not long before Christmas the King of Sweden was smoking a cigar on an ottoman in his palace. He rose to make his way to his study, and hardly had he left his seat when a massive chandelier weighing several hundredweight fell down with a tremendous crash, completely smashing the very piece of furniture occupied by the King only a second before.

It was found that the central beam of the ceiling has been rotting for years. In the Crimean war an artist of an illustrated London paper was sketching in his tent.

Suddenly two round shot passed through the tent. He rose to make his escape, when a large shell fell in the tent and burst within two feet of where he was standing. Despite the fact that the tenb was torn to ribbons, the correspondent escaped unhurt.

Perhaps the most thrilling instance in our collection is that of a navvy who was walking home along the line of the Wrexham and Mold railway absorbed (let us hope) in meditation. He was overtaken by a goods train, and in his hurry to get off the line to allow the train to pass, the heel of his boot got jambed between the points.

The man instantly saw his fearful danger. The train was coming down upon him with speed, and despite his violent tugs to loosen the boot from its hold, he could not move it. The engine was nearing him, and as a last desperate effort he threw himself on his side off the line and suddenly bethought himself to draw his foot from the boot.

But for the fact that on that day he wore a pair of elastic-side boots he would have suffered one of the most fearful tortures it is possible to imagine ; as it was, his boot was cut to ribbons.