NEVER SAW FEAR.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 110, 15 June 1914, Page 5

NEVER SAW FEAR.

A BOY HERO. The story of Albert Hatswell, the little boy without fear, who sacrificed his own life in preventing a runaway carthorse from doing harm in a crowded London thoroughfare, has touched people everywhere in a way which proves that a deed finely done, though by a child, shows its light a long way yet in this busy and pre-occupied world, says a London journal under date April 14. Strangers have been making what poor reparation can now be made to the boy's mother in many little ways, most of them anonymously. All yesterday messages were being sent to her —and flowers for the. coffin, for the lad is to be buried to-morrow at Finchley Cemetery.

DEMOCRATIC DEATH. Some letters obviously were written by school children. Others were courtly and from large houses. Death is certainly democratic enough, and there seems to be a fine communal interest still for anyone who dies in acting for others — particularly when that one is an inconspicuous nipper, still of school age. Mothers and fathers in all parts of the kingdom wrote confessing how proud they would be to have had such a son. A box of flowers from Cork was addressed to Mrs Hatswell's other three children, and enclosed was this note:— I have sent you these flowers ' for your dear brother's grave in memory of his heroic conduct, which should not be forgotten. My family and I

have the greatest sympathy for you. Poor Mrs Hatswell, who lives in Hatton buildings, tenement apartments in the Hornsey-road, N., is indeed proud of these attentions, though embarrassed as well, as a mother might be who is a widow, with an income of 12/- a week (rent 6/6), who is out daily at her job of scrubbing, and suddenly finds herself, through the surprising heroism of her lad, the centre of the world's gaze. THE BOY WHO ALWAYS HELPED.

But if this story shows the stuff the humble are made of it will do more good than young Bert Hatswell had in his mind when he jumped for the reins of that carthorse; because it is not so certain whether his own or his mother's heroism is the greater.

The woman has endured much under trying difficulties, and this last affair, though it is of an heroic quality, does nothing to lighten her load. For it seems that Bert was a good boy, and not a "young rip"—he was the sort of youngster who did realise that his mother's work was pretty hard and thankless, and was always doing what he could to make things easier for her.