The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1881-05-05
NUMBER 10
LAST DYING WORDS.
How Some Famous People Have Met Their
Fate.

London Globe
Help me-" are melancholy words
uttered by the man whose will a mo.
ment before was paramount in the lar.
Sest empire on earth, and to whom
more than 50 000, 600 of fellow creatures
were IN subsection. Yet these were, we
are told, the last words of the late EN-
Peror, after the fatal bomb had done the
work designed for it, on the banks of the
Catharine canal What words were last
/ spoken by men who died in the field or
on the scaiold. or in bed have been
sutlclently noted by history. MANY
such We doubtless owe to the zeal of
friends anxious for the final uiterances
| to be in accord with the character of the
deceased Even when. however. the
last words are beyond question authen-
nc, they must not be estimated at too
high rate. The Sir Thomas More or
the Madame Roland who perishes on the
scaftold the Mirabeau or the Goeth
who dies in his bed even the Sir Philip
Sydney or the Sir Thomas Picton who
is killed in battle, meets fate with some
degree of preparedness. Although
nobody has served apprenticeship to
dying, those named cannot be said 10
have reached their end unexpectlv. In
the case OF those to whom death comes
IN the shape of an assassin there is, on
the contrary. an element of surprise.
which gives to the words, often uttered
IN stupefed and unconscious state.
peculiar INTEREST,"
The cry for help Of the dead Emperor
was cry natural and not surprising.
1t proved kindred between the autocrat
and the humblest peasant in Russia
There have, however, been men in
ancient and IN modern times whose last
words in similar circumstances have
shown the character of the speaker with
as much distinctness as any Of the acts
OF their lives. That Brutus was among /
the consplrators against his life, was the 1
cardinal consideration with Caesar when /
a Senate drew their daggers against him. /
1t Is said that after Casca had stabbed 1
him III the neck, this greatest of the I
ancients nobly resisted. When Cassius, /
with furious rage, wounded him in the .
head he stilled continued to struggle.
But when he saw Brutus aim n dagger
at his heart, the hero ceased to contend
with his assassins. And thou, too, Bru-
tus !" he muttered, as he covered his
face, and fell. Have not these last
words indescribable pathos for all time
The concern of the man who. through
life had been true to friends was not
that he was to die, but that one of his
friends should participate in his muir
der. Cicero, when, after the formation
Of the Second Triumvirate, and the
triumph Of their party, he found his
name on the bloody list Of prescription,
lid not show, nor could he be ex-
pected to show, that tirmness in face
Of death which man of war
from you, such as Cesar, is expected
to possess. At first he meant to kill
himself in the house of Octavianus
but his courage failed him. He was
not made of such stuff as his contempt
rary Cato, who fell on his own sword
md who, when his friends, taking ad-
vantage of his fainting, replaced the
that had fallen out, and
sewed up the wound, tore them open
III coming to himself He fed. Still,
n the final crisis, he comported him
self with dignity. When the assassins
rushed at the litter in which he wa
being carried he stretched out his neck
md exclaimed, Strike with more
,loquence than he had ever before ex-
libited, and received the fatal stroke
without shrinking
In all history, modern as well as
ancient, profane as we'll as sacred, in
instances are found Of men
who have exhibited what the First
Napoleon called 1.-TWO o'clock-in-the-
morning courage in the presence Of the
assassin. On the evening Of that De
,ember day, in l170, when the courtiers
If Henry II. arrived at Canterbury,
md found Thomas a'Becket at Vespers
n the Cathedral, the prelate's last words
we're in keeping with his life. As the
lssassins advanced toward him, with
heir drawn swords, he exclaimed that
ne died for the cause of God and in
defense of the rights Of the church
md, he added, Il charge you, il the
name of the Almighty, to do no hurt to
my other here, for none have any con-
,ern in the late transactions" Perhaps
he most noble last words ever spoken !
we're those uttered by William the {
Silent, the founder of Dutch liberty. I
Unlike Counts Egmond and Hoorn, he
escaped the scafold and persisted by the
rand of a mean assassin. When Bal
hazar Gerard, after having obtained an fl,
on the plea Of being a i
of mercy, suddenly turned |
md shot the Prince with pistol loaded
With three bullets, William felle eiacu
ating, my God have mercy upon
ne and Thy poor people !" Taken by
urprise and sent to his reckoning with
,ut warning, his concern was yet with
he country to which his life had been
devoted and whose liberties he had
ecured When the cause of indepen-
lence was precarious, when it had been
secured, and when it had to be left to
he care of others, his thought was Of /
ais country and my God have mercy {
Ipon me and Thy poor people" were the
-erv words that might have been ex-
,ected from the great benefactor who,
yhen the Prince made a progress
through Holland and Friesland, was
eceived by the peasants as Father
William" 4,