HEROISM.

Patea Mail, 21 January 1882, Page 4

HEROISM.

A recent London paper relates as follows:—“ A brave man has gone to bis rest in the person of Captain Strachan, of the steamer Cyprian, of Liverpool. Caught in a fierce storm, the crew of the Cyprian were engaged almost from the hour of starting in a long and sleepless struggle to save their vessel. The measures taken by their commander at each new crisis of the steamer’s danger would in themselves have stamped him as. a skilful mariner. He did for his vessel all that a captain could do, and not until all was in ruin ahd the cables parted did the gallant * commander bid each man look for himself, since seamanship could avail no more. ' Meanwhile a miserable little stowaway had come upon deck. The lad had no .kind of business there. A waif of the Liverpool gutters, what was his little life to that of the captain with his wife and child ashore, and the future to make for them ? but the gallant Strachan unlashed from his own breast the lifebelt, which would be his best—in reality, his only—chance of reaching the land. * I can swim that far, my boy, he said, and with this last splendid performance the captain closed his mortal career. He was drowned, but the waif was saved, let us hope, to be useful in the world. A subscription is to be raised for the noble Strachan’s family.”