The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-09 00:00:00

Death of a Noted Wrestler.

A few days ago• there died in one of the work-
houses in Manchester a daring character, named
Isaac Robinson, said to be a native of Shap. At one
time he acted as guide to the surnmitS of Helvellyn,
Skiddaw, and other mountains, often to crags fast-
nesses,
and gulleys which had never before been pene-
trated by man. . On more than one occasion he was
hired to preceed at midnight in search of excursionists
who had been lost in the mist, and he rarely re-
turned without bringing safely home those who
were about to perish through cold and hunger. A
few years later he was noted all over Cumberland
and Westmorland as one of the first wrestlers of the
day. During a portion of this time, too, he acted as
under gamekeeper, and, along with others, was en-
gaged in a terrible affray with poachers on the pre-
serves of the Earl of Lonsdale, near Lowther Castle.
In this encounter he seized two poachers and held
them, and the same moment two guns were fired at
him by others of the gang. The poachers were sub-
sequently tried at the assizes at Appleby, convicted,
and sent out of the country. He was one of three
daring fellows who undertook to rid the neighbour-
hood of Wigton of a gang of gipsies who had held
possession of some moorland there for more than 20
years, and which they accomplished in the face of
terrible dangers. But the act for which his name
will ever remain a household word in many parts of
the north was that of rescuing a young lady from
drowning. One Christmas a party of ladies and
gentlemen were on a visit to -- Castle, and, as
there had been two or three days' frost, they resolved •
to skate on a lake in the park. Near to some trees
on the margin of the lake the only daughter of the .
proprietor fell, breaking the ice with her fall, and
she sank. The catastrophe paralysed every one pre-
sent, but the screams and shouts for assistance brought
several labourers to the spot. No one, however,
ventured to enter the water or tried to save the
young girl's life. At this juncture Robinson, who
had also heard the screams, reached the spot, just as
the young lady reached the surface, dashed into the
water, seized the girl by the hair, and dragged her "
to the side ; and, taking off his keeper's coat, he
wrapped her in it and bore her to the hall. Before
he entered the carriage drive the news of the disaster
had reached the family, who were all coming down
to the lake in the utmost consternation. Seeing his
master, the late Mr. Cawthorne, then M.P. for Lan-
caster, whose messenger he was, he imagined it was
some relative of his, and told him how the rescue
had been effected. For this timely act of bravery
he was rewarded by the young lady's father with a
pension for life. The young lady herself, in a year
or two after, was married to a merchant named
Thompson, who made him many presents. All,
however, was insufficient. In the latter part of
his life Robinson took to drinking, and frequently
forestalled his pension by many months, and at last
died a pauper at the age of 90. He had a sister,
who died two years ago, near Penrith, in her 92d
year, and it is well known that the physical strength
of the family never had its equal in the neighbour-
hood of their birth.—Cumberland Pacquet.

LADY CLERKS.—It would seem that the employ-
ment of women as clerks in the Government departments
at Washington has proved a failure. In the Department
of the Interior, the dismissal of all the female clerks is being
effected as rapidly as possible, and it is understood that the
Treasury Department, which employs the largest number
of any, is about to adopt the sane course. The services of
women, instead of being more econolnical than those of
'men, are found to be more expensive. Individually
their wages may be less, but, in the aggregate, they ac-
complish less labor than an equal number of men. It
is alleged in Washington that the mania for extravagant
dress is one of the principal drawbacks to the efficiency of
the women at their duties in the departments. A lady
writer in the Washington chronicle comments severely upon
this, remarking : —The employment of women in the
Government departments is an experiment. It has not,
thus far, been so complete a success as its friends could
wish, and may possibly yet be pronounc3d a failure. The
fault is chiefly all on our side of the house. Women per-
severe in carrying the drawing-room to the office. Unless
this mistake can be corrected, the experiment must fail.
A. fixed rule of good breeding excludes the shop from the
parlor. A man who lugs his business, habitually, into his
social hours is always a bore ; and what should we think
of one who went to his counting or consulting-room in the
ball-dress of the previous evening? It would certainly
be better for humanity that all of this class of Government
employds should starve at home than that they should cor-
rupt public morals, and lower the national standard of
womanly delicacy by recognising their right to fill the
honorable positions many of them occupy. I know that
some, perhaps a majority, of these dress thus from misap-
prehending the situation. They fail to see the distinction
between business and social life, and so drag the drawing-
room with them, with its coquetries, on to and into the
office.

" PRESENTED" TO GENERAL GRANT.—Part of
the scene of the 20th ult. at the levee held at the Fifth
Avenue Hotel by General Grant is thus described by the
New York Tinges:—The presentation business was really
very absurd. In front of the flowers stood General Grant,
with the committee all about him, like bees about a lump
of sugar ; just by and at his right were Mrs. Grant
and other ladies mentioned ; at his left were Mrs. General
Hooker, Mr. Ethan Allen, General Wool, John Van Buren,
Miss Dix, General Cook, occasionally General Hooker and
the members of the press. In the front was the multitude
shouting, jostling, hot, tired, cross, weary crowd, badgered
and bullied, and pushed and pulled by the infelicitous
committeemen. As each couple approached a little man
asked their names; ho generally managed to get them
wrong, and announced to the General all queer kinds of
cognomens, which were as amusing to the parties pre-
sented as they were unintelligible to the General. Some-
times a couple would go by without a name being given,
the consequence being that in his commendable effort to
keep up with the crowd the gentleman who presented
them would give Mr. and Mrs. Robinson the appellation
by which Mr. and Mrs. Jones were ordinarily known, and
the direst confusion of course existed. Every man and
woman insisted upon shaking the General by the hand, so
that by the time the affair was ended his right hand was
shockingly swollen and shapeless. Some pious and
reverent people offered little prayers for him as he passed,
and others judged it a good opportunity of making
pretty little speeches like these : l'am glad to see you,
General. God bless and preserve you many years."
" General, this is my eldest son, William Mason —Willie,
tell General Grant the little prayer you say for him every
night." (Willie attempts to do so, but is moved on sud-
denly by the active committeemen.) " I always knew you
would be victorious, General. I told Dr. Vinton that God
would surely crown so good and great a man with success.
May I not kiss you, General ?" (The General declined.)
"You remember we met last fall at West Point ?" (The
General smiled vacantly, as if he did not like to tell a
story.) " Quite a crowd here to-night. All deserved,
sir; all deserved ! God bless, God protect you, dear, dear
General ?" " I want to talk with you, old fellow, about
Chattanooga." "I had a brother in the 29th Connecti-
cut. I wonder if you knew him ?" These and scores
besides were said to the General, who solemnly permitted
his hand to be pumped up and down at the will of the merci-
less populace. So far as we could see, besides a tendency
to blood in the head, there was no fatigue or change. in
him from the time of commencement until the close. He
rarely spoke, save when some old army acquaintance or
some particularly charming lady made a remark, and then
his words were brief and to the point.
CENSUS STATISTICS.—According to the Census
report for 1860, there wore then established in the United
States over two millions and forty-four thousand farmers;
the cities and villages were twenty-eight thousand, con-
taining a fraction less than five million of houses ; the
manufactories were one hundred and forty thousand, while
new machine shops loom up in every direction in almost
countless numbers. In the year 1810 the aggregate
manufacturing values of certain specified articles amounted
to $138,613,471, and in 1860 the value of the same
branches of industry, according to the census tables, was
$1,885,861,676; and allowing a moderate estimate for
omissions and for non-return of minor establishments,
they roach the enormous sum of two thousand millions of
dollars, having been multiplied ten times within the fifty
years ending in 1860, whilst the population in the same
period has increased four-and-a-half fold. They have
within their boundaries an area of three and a quarter
millions of square miles, and a coast line by river, lake,
and ocean of twenty-nine thousand three hundred and
twenty-eight miles.
THE OVERLAND TELEGRAPH.—Application was
made recently to the United States Nztvy Department, by
Ethan Allen, of New York, in behalf of the Russian and
American and Overland Telegraph Company, for a naval
vessel to aid in laying the cable across Behring's Straits.
The application was refused by the Assistant Secretary of
the Navy, on the Ground that it was exclusively a private
enterprise.