HEROES.

Thames Star, Volume XVI, Issue 5079, 25 April 1885, Page 4

HEROES.

•In drsmns, heroes are generally rescued triumphantly from tho dapgers to which their bravery has exposed them, but it is not always go in real life. Every year convinces* me that poetical justice does not exist on earth, and-that the reward of tho hero is found elsewhere, ns is that of the simply good, man. Tho coward olten saves himself. The selfish and grasping too often prosper. We at least ought to hold the heroes in orir memories awhile. But, alas .'who butthose who loved them will do this? I blush with shame to think that at this instant I cannot reca 1 ti t name .of theman who stopped tha gap in tho breaking tunnel with his own body, and said : "Boys, save ybursclves. You are married ; lam not;" and was drowned. I.'regret that there is no record of those who every year lose their lives in saving strapgers. from a watery grave; and their comrade'sJriily know vie firemen who die ■ amidst fimoke and flames in the discharge . of their duty, and the engineers who go to their deatb^-a| many a one has done— to to save the train full of passengers behind them. To-day, the name of another hero lies before me, that of James Carr, the foreman of a Chicaco factory that was re- i cenlly burned. By his coolness acd energy ho sared the lives of thirty parsons, ■ and then fearing that sonio helpless soul : had been forgotton, he returned to the ! upper story, and perished. He died an 1 agonizing death, within sight of those who might have shared a similar fate but for , his efforts. I do not Ifnow whethor he had wife or children, or any dear ones lo grieve for him ; but it is probable fhat ho had. Such.a man conld scare ly bo with.out close lies of gome sort, iittf-rly must they, grieve for him. But hej'ond mention of the fire, little will be said. LHtle was said of the hero of the submerged tunnel. Accidents arc painful. Peopls do not like to licger over thrm, and the heroes of them are set aside with othor unpleasant details. Officers who fall in battle get into history; men of the ranks rarely; and these plain working-men, who are heroes of a rarer sort than soldiers, poss with the newsboy's cry of " Dreadful accident 1" "Loss of life!" from men's memories. l ret; amidst the selfish world, fullof rather cowardly folk, how brightly they ought,to stand out, these men who have . given their lives, for others, not blindly, not knowing all their risks, "as brave men only .know it.