CONVICT HEROES.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17220, 1 October 1927, Page 16 (Supplement)

CONVICT HEROES.

SOMETHING GOOD EVERYWHERE, Under just laws such as ours no man is sent to penal servitude unless he is guilty of a serious crime, but two convicts have proved that a man who has done wrong may not be altogether bad. A squad of men from Peterhead Prison in Aberdeenshire was working in some quarries when one fell down a disused shaft. It was 50 feet deep and full of water. Another, who could swim, dived and tried to keep his fellow-prisoner's head above water, but their heavy boots weighed them down, and both weie in danger. The Boy on the Mast. Then a third man took the perilous dive, and between them the two rescuers kept the non-swimmer afloat till help came. The two men who went to tne am of their comrade at such grave risk to themselves have something in common with a greatly respected trench fisherman named Kerdreux . This honest man went fishing on the coast near Brest with a boy ot i-i named Pierre Quintric. A gale sprang up and the little boat sank, but the mast remained above water, and Quintric managed to climb it. There he found Kerdreux. It was night, and many long hours had to pass before daylight came. Kerdreux had a rope, and, knowing that it was’the only thing between himself and death, he gave that rope to the boy, bidding him lash himself to the mast. The Qreat Sacrifice. For about an hour they were together, with great waves washing over them Then Kerdreux got weaker and weaker, till the sea finally carried him away. . , At 7 30 the next morning a boat came in sight, but the one man on board Was 80, and Quintric was nearly helpless with exhaustion. As soon as he unlashed the rope he sank, and it is almost a miracle that the old, old fisherman .was able to rescue hirn with a boat-hook 1 Between honest Kerdreux and the two nameless convicts there seems a exeat chasm, yet they had one thing in common; they kept the second gieat commandment. They would lay down their life for their friend. Truly it ill becomes any one of us to find fault with the rest of us.