HOW GREAT MEN ESCAPED.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 54, 12 October 1878, Page 4

HOW GREAT MEN ESCAPED.

Some years'ago a young man holding 1 subordinate position in the Kast ludi ; company's service twice attempted to di privu himself o£ life by snappinga loadc ■ pistol at his head. Each time the pisb ' Uiis><.ti tiro. A friend entering the root ', shortly afterward lie requested liim tofii ; it out uf tin.' window. It then went o • without difficulty. Satisfied that tl ' weapon had beeu duly primed and loadci the young man sprang up exclaiming ' '• 1 must be preserved tor somethin great," an from that moment gave up (1. 1 idea of suicide, which for some time pn ' vious had been uppermost injhis thought ' That young man afterwards became Loi » Clive. Raoon, the sculptor, when a tender ho , of rive years old, fell into a pit of a sou boiler and must have perished had not . workman, just entering the yard, observe I the iop of his head. When Oliver Cromwell was an infant - monkey snatched him from his cradl 1 leaped with him from a garret windov and ran along the leads of the houso. Tb > utmost alarm was excited among the ir i mutes, and various devices were used I ■ rescue the child from his newly fuiin I protector. All wits unavailing, his woulc 1 be rescuers had Inst courage, and were i i despair of ever seeing the Baby alive agai I when the monkey quietly retraced hj t steps and deposited its burden safel , upon the Led. On a subsequent ore; r sion.the water well nigh quenched hj ' insatiable ambition. He fell into a dei i pond, from drowing in which a elergj - man was the sole instrument of his rts ! cue. ! Doddridge, when bom, was so wcakl ' an infant that he was believed tohedeai • A nurse standing by fancied she sa' r signs of vitality. Thus, the feeble spar " of life was saved from being extinguish^ and an eminent author preserved to ti ' world. Many years have elapsed since thn subalterns might have been seen strilf gling in the water of St Helena, one t ' them peculiarly helpless. Ho was saved t [ live as Arthur Wellcsl. y, Dnko of We liiigton. 1 The life of .lolm Newton is but tl history of marvellous deliverances. As 1 youth he had agreed to accompany soni [ friends on board of a man-of-war. II arrived too lute ; the boat in which hj I friends had gone was capsized and a I its occupants drowned. On another oi r cession, when tide surveying in the po; i of Liverpool, some business bud detuwe I him, to the great surprise of those \vh were in the habit of observing hj undeviating punctuality. Ho went ou in tho boat as heretofore, to inspect ship, which blow up before he reached he Hud he left the shor<<H few minutes soone he rms; have perished with tho rest o board, ■