Cheated Death Thousand Times

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 208, 5 September 1935, Page 10

Cheated Death Thousand Times

SIR CLAUDE CHAMPION DE CRESPIGNY THE D’ARTAGNAN OF OUR DAY LONDON, Juiy 1. Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny, Bart., a man whose whole life was one of thrills, adventure and romance, died at his home at Maldon (Essex). He was eighty-eight and had been more or less an invalid since September last year. Members of his family, including two sems and two daughters, were with him when he died. Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny’s life contained more thrills than any novelist ever dreamed of. He has been described as a modern D’Artagnan, but that is a too modest description. His ancestors were Crusaders, and tbeir spirit had come to Sir Claude. He had the chivarlry and love of adventure of these old-time knights. He lived dangerously and thrived on it. Cheated Death at Sport He cheated death time and again. He: Broke both legs in a balloon accident. Arms three time swhilo hunting. Three ribs at steeplechasing. A rib in a cab mishap, and . . Fingers through boxing. Received repeated concussion of the brain. When he was eighty-four, he celebrated his birthday by doing a somersault from a 30ft diving board into* icy water. —And in the Jungle. In the wilds, too, he played with life with the same daring recklessness.

In India he got into and out of the coils of a python. Ho shot a wounded tiger that had him trapped in the jungle. In East Africa he killed a charging rhinoceros by breaking its neck with a softnosed bullet at two paces. He was the only European who ever swam the narrow gut of the first cataract of he Nile. Once Sir Claude was nearly scalped by a pet monkey. Another time he fell I'rojn a ballon, after having flown the North Sea. Still again, he dived into a sharkinfested river and saved a man from drowning. When he was fifty-nine, he did the hattrick at the Africa Turf Club, Nairobi, by winning three races equivalent to our Derby, Ascot Gold Cup and Grand National. When he rode his own horse to victory in the Great Caudown ’Chase in 1933, he was heartily congratulated by King Edward. At seventy-three Sir Claude chai langed Lord Kenyon, his cdusin, sixteen years bis junior to a duel with any weapons be liked. Lord Kenyon i ?fused to take the matter seriously, for hr- said that “at one time or anoth-

er Sir Claude has challenged the whole country. So exuberant was he on his ditunond wedding day that he went for a swim in a river near his homo at Mai'dou. The Company of D’Artagnan AU his wounds Sir Claude regarded as a small price to pay for the excitement which filled his life and kept him young. So young that at eighty-seven he gave a Peter Pan party to the friends who had shared in some of his adventures. He thought that at the age he bad gained enough experience to say something about young people. “Women,” he declared, “are trying to do too much to-day. One begins to wonder what they will be up to'next, with their politics and their strenuous games and their gadding about.” Of young men: “There are fellows who smoke too much. 'I his cocktau habit, too, is wretched.’ Give inc a pint of port a night and 1 am content. Next “Well,” said the dentist, cheerily, as he entered the waiting room, “who has been waiting the longest?’ “I have,” said the tailor, as he presented his bill.—El P ,, -> World.