New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-11-26

|
sweet HART She was hauding him doom.
The hizzy was a. reicht, but she was droon-
ing the lad: parts (Z) these twa' lovers-for
their gude-and talks 'em ashore, one IN each
hand Aweel srr saved just one MAR, ana
then | plunged in again, and sairched; pu'
! there was nae mair to be seen moo three pun
asses were droOned bid / did ma Ken that al
| the time. And moo I'll tell ye farce. In
| seized VII faintness, and maks for the shole'
But 'gat weaker and dazed like, ana inc
lights o. Glasgee begins to tecker a1ore my
cen and thinks ], IN no see ye again LIN
done this time.' 1t was all could do Tor the
bare life, to drift to the hinder part o. 'no
quay. | hadna the power to draw mysef oot'
| Just grippt the quay, and soDDit. Ino ioin
| were a. busy wi them l had saved; name VI
them noticed me, and wad ha been drooneu
that NIGHT: but-wha dye think saved me
that had saved sac mOny IAN auld decrplt
man: bawl haw haw! He had hookit SUCK,
and gied me the handle, and towed me along the
quay into shallow water, and | gat DOT, WI
his help, and swooned deed away. Pm tauld
| Law there negeckit awhile; but they fand
me at last, and then l had fifty nurses for
ane"
Have / exaggerated7 Does history record
any other example of man being clutched
by great number of drowning people, and
carried to the bottom, and saving them all In
the lump, and then dashing in and saving the
outsiders in detail
BY way of illustration let the reader mag
inc an umbrella frame, and only four or
five curved whalebOnes attached TO the top
part of the upright: now fasten several other
curved whalebones high up, to each of those
four or five curves Now plunge the whole
frame into water till the upright touches the
ground. Not one of the sixteen curved pieces
will touch the ground. But, in the water, If a
person, male or female, clings to fixed
upright, that persons body floats up more or
less; at all events, it inclines toward the
| horizontal.
Now James Lambert, by artifcially straight
ening his body, made himself the stick OF that
human umbrella. or the upright post they all
chung to directly or indirectly, and so were
| kept floating in a curve, instead OF sinking TO
the bottom. This enabled him, but only by
patiently and artfully watching the fluctu-
| atoms up and down of those floating bodies,
to spring at the nick of time from the hard
ground, and carry them all to the surface for
a few seconds. The rest is detail, and his
| own narrative makes it clear. But see what
Intellectual and moral qualities were here
combined. Genius is often without cour-
arge; courage is generally without genius
and so indeed is bare skill and, in desperate
danger, how often has genius lost its head
and blundered like an idiot how often has
courage lacked invention, and relied on pre-
cedent, that did not fit the novel danger, and
so lead it to death. But this man, even as his
| body touched the water, was all cool courage
and swift inventive genius. He did not re-
peat himself, as mere skill does. Rugged IN
the water by a single man-the baker-he hit,
with prompt invention, on the one way to save
both lives; he used the bakers own chest as
a fulcrum, ard so tore himself free. But
| clutched by a dozen, and more, he never at
tempted to get free at all, but Strengthened aud
stinened himself into an upright post and used
the ground as his fulcrum, to save himself and
those who were drowning themselves and him.
/ come, now, to the sad ending Of all these
| glorious deeds.
James Lambert was up the river working,
but at what business l forget An engineer
| fell into the water, and sank for the last time
before James could get to the place.
| Following the direction of persons on the
bank he flung himself from bridge and
| dived for the man. But the others had not
marked the place precisely, and when, after
repeated efforts, he brought the man to land,
life was gone forever. TO use his own words,
&" 1t was dear jump. He lost his life, and |
lost my sight"
1t was Winter, and he was perspiring freely
when he jumped into the icy water
Very soon after, great dazzling seized him,
| Poll b1,1 oil n1 off a
and he saw again. But the same thing
occurred at intervals; and, by degrees the
attacks came oftencr and remained longer,
until at last the daIkDcss settled down, and
the light fled forever.
Think of it. This twenty years he can no
longer see the "DOminie's hole" nor "the three
stanes," nor the "peat bog" nor the dead
house." nor the Clyde itself, where every bend
is the scene of some great good feat he did.
More than fourscOre eyes he rescued from the
darkness of the grave; yet unjust fate, and
dire calamity, have not left him one poor orb,
to see the blessed day, and the faces of those
he has saved.
Now turn back to the story repeated from The
Glasgow Times, and surely you will say that it
was rare, and noble, and poetic distress, aud
worthy to be sung by some great poet.
am no poet, and cannot adOrn so strong
tale; therefore l have aimed at that
which all honest men can attain,
if they will but take trouble, viz, the
exact truth. / travelled to see him. /
stayed in Glasgow many days to know him.
| took him down to the Clyde, and verified
every spot, and got him to tell me each prin-
cipal incident over again, at Its own site, and
| | noted down his very words, as well as |
could.