STANLEY’S FATE.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 26, 11 August 1887, Page 2

STANLEY’S FATE.

NO FURTHER TIDINGS. LostiON, August 16, (iredi aoiiety Still prevails throughout England is to tlie probable fate of Stanley, the great exploter. No further information has been received, and a confirmation or denial of the report Is eagerly awaited. Owing to the natme of the country through which any news would have to pass it wduld necessarily taka some time to teoeive iny reliable authority as to the rQffioiir;

The government are making every effort to obtain some particulars as to Stanley's fate,

The following speech made by Mr Stanley before the New York Lotus Club, prior to his departure on the Emin Bey relief expedition; should prove interesting in connection with the above:—l affi conscious that in ffiy immediate vicinity there are people who were great when I was email—when I was unknown to anybody; when I was sent to report a lecture by my friend opposite [Mr Alfred Townsend]. The next great Obcisidn when I had to come before the public was Mark Twain’s lecture on the Sandwich Islands. And when I look to my left here I see Colonel Anderson, whose very face gives me an idea that Bennett has got some telegraphic despatch, and is about to send me to some terrible region for some desperate commission. (Laughter.) Of course you are aware that it was owing to the proprietor of a newspaper that I dropped the garb of a journalist to don that of an African traveller. It was not for me to question his motives, fte was an able editor, very rich, and desperately despotic. He commanded a great army of roving writers, people of fame in the news-gathering world, men who had been everywhere and had seen everything ; men who were as ready to give their advice to national cabinets as they were to the smallest police courts. (Laughter.) I belonged to this class of roving writers, and can truly say that I did my best to be conspicuously great in it, as though th* rotation of the universe depended upon my single endeavors. (Applause.) Bennett first sent me to Abyssinia. It seemed to him a very ordinary thing, so I took it as a very ordinary thing too. Somehow luck followed me, though the. Press called me an impostor, I was next sent to Crete, to describe the rebellion there; and then to Spain. Then all of a sudden I was called to Paris, and Mr Bennett, in that despotic way of his said, ’• I want you to go and find Livingstone." I went, and as good luck would have it, found him. (Cheers.) I returned as a good citizen and newspaper reporter ought, to tell the tale, and arriving at Aden, I telegraphed a request that I might be permitted to visit civilisation before I went to China. (Laughter.) I came to civilisation, and what do you think was the result ? Why, all the world disbelieved my story I Dear me 1 if I were proud of anything it was that what I said was a fact—that whatever I said I would do, I would endeavor to do it with all my might, or, as many of my predecessors had done, leave my bones behind. (Cheers.) I was requested to write a paper as to my geographical work, and for my pains was told that the Society did not come to listen to sensational stories—they wanted to hear facts I One learned gentleman wrote to the Times stating that it was not Stanley who had discovered Livingstone, but that it was Livingstone who had found Stanley, If it had not been for that unbelief I do not believe I should ever have visited Africa again. I should have settled down and become as steady end stolid as some of those patriots that I see around here. But that was not to be, I left New York for Spain, and then the Ashantee war broke out, and once more my good luck followed me, as I got the treaty of peace ahead of everybody else. As I was returning to England I received a message that Livingstone was dead I I said, “ What does this mean to me ? The New Yorkers do not believe in me. How shall I prove that what I have said is true ? By George I I will go and oomplete Livingstone's work. I will prove that the discovery of Livingstone was a mere flea-bite. I will prove to them that I am a good man and true.” That is all that I wanted, (Loud cheers.) I went and saw Livingstone’s remains buried—the remains ot that man whom I had left sixteen months before enjoying full lite and abundant hope. [Mr Stanley then related how he had been backed by Mr Bennett and the proprietor of the Daily Telegraph, His subsequent suecesses, up to the present period of uncertainty as to his fate, are well known.]