AN AUTOCRAT’S CURE
Captain Webb’s foolhardy and fatal endeavour to -shoot the rapids of Niagara bn a wager of 10,000dol, recalls an incident of the reign of Czar Nicholas, Half a century ago. Looking out of his window one day,'that monarch saw a large and interested crowd on the bank of the Neva. He sent an officer to find but the cause, and learned th&t a man had bet five roubles—about 14s—that he could run across the river on the ice, which was then in that treacherous, half, liquid state, caused by the commencement -of the spring thaw. The man. performed the perilous feet, received his five roubles, and then Nicholas had him arrested and' flogged with a hundred stripes ; “ for,” said the Czar, “ a man who will risk bis life for snch a snm is capable of committing any act of baseness for a similar consideration
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Bibliographic details
Patea Mail, Volume IX, Issue 1080, 12 October 1883, Page 3
Word Count
147AN AUTOCRAT’S CURE Patea Mail, Volume IX, Issue 1080, 12 October 1883, Page 3
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