Connecticut western news., 1882-07-05
AN ARCTIC HERO.
The Last Days Of De Long and his
 Heroic Little Party.
From the Detroit Free Press.l

From the Detroit Free Press.]
 The diary of Lieut.. De Long extends from Oct to Oct. 90. It is the record of terrible suffering borne with indom- itable heEoism and ending in death. There is not if3 literature nobler or more pathetic story.
 De Long and his men died of cold ana hunger. They supported life during thirty days by the adoption of every means known to shipwrecked men ex- cept csnnibalism. No one seems to have thought of that horrible expedient. At first they had little dog meat, and they managed to shoot two or three ptarmigans; then they were reduced to tea made of willow twigs and to alco- hol. At last they gnawed the leather o1 their boots and bits of deer-skin, and then, too weak to continue their march, lay down to die. They were slowly dying of starvation for three weeks, and | in this condition had to resist as best they could the terrible cold. Through it all they never lost their courage. "An hands weak and feeble, but cheer full" wrote De Long, when 1t must have been perfectly clear that nothing but a miracle could save the party from death. There is not 8 line in the whole diary of complaint or murmuring against God or maf1.
 It too often happens that discipline vanishes among shipwrecked men, and that the selfish desire of life leads to inhumanity, if not to actual crime There is no such stain in the story of the Jeannette. Lieut.. De Long seems to have maintained his authority un- questioned to the last, and his men evl' dently shared his generous spirit. For days they dragged sick companion with them dashed to sled, and never seemed to have thought of abandoning him in order to increase thelr OWL chances of reaching 8 settlement. The officers and men never manifested the slightest hesitation between duty anc selishness. They clung together ano helped one another Loyalty while living and so long as the survivors hac strength their dead comrades were glver Christian burial. There was apparently no difference in the bearing and devo
 tion of De Long the American, Brick
 son the Dane, or An Sam the China
 mau, Every man of the little band wa
 hero, knowing how to do his dnt,
 and doing it with unfinchlng faithful
 ness. ..- In their distress the shipwrecked mel turned for help to God. In De Long d1nry there is constant mention of re Iigious services. When the is!thfu Alexy was dying the surgeon baptze'
 him, and when all hope had gone VI are told that Gall united in saying tn
 Lords Prayer and Creed" The hum ble. cheerful trust in God and submis sion to His will, of which De Long diary gives constant evidence, shows u that it was band of Christian heroe
 that perished in the Siberian snow. Bitterly as we may at first sight re gret that so many noble lives have beel lost, the men of the Jeannette's cre' did not die in vain. Their fate suggest 5 that beautiful passage in the Prayer D book where we thank God for thos
 who have departed this life in His fea1 De Long and his men have made U : prouder of our own humanity. The = have shown us to what sublime height
 of heroism educated officers and igne
 rant seamen can attain alike.
 - They have given an example ct call 6 and cheerful performance of duty whlc is without price. They have shown
 once more that faith in God can SUI : vive all suffering. Let us thank do e for the life and death of these heroi
 men.
 u It is impossible that their heroism ca - fail to bear it's priceless and perenni' fruit. But let us have no more cost @ sacrifices of lives in the vain search f the pole. It is idle as well as ungene ous to blame the projectors of the Jeal
 nette expedition for it's disasterous fiji
 ure. The vessel was to follow rou hitherto untried, and there was amp U justification for testing the questio II whether the pole could be reached b g ithat route. Exploration becomes u
 iusti6abIe only when it IS demonstrate
 that the end sought cannot be attaine 8 in spite of every effort and sacritic
 When the Jeannette sailed it had nc
 been demonstrated that the pole cou l. not be reached by steering northwa 'r from Wrangell Land. Her experien 'r has now proved that the ice barrier It as impenetrable in that direction as it
 wherever else it has been attacked. Tl
 chances that the pole can ever
 reached are now so infnitesimally smi n that we are not justified in wasting al m more lives in polar expeditions. d send out another expedition would sho D. 8 reckless indieffrence to human life ,s which any nation ought to be asham Let us close the record of hopele ,a heroism and useless sufferings in t - frozen sea with the story of the noble = of all the Arctic heroes, George w. ,k Long.
 Unfortunate Animals.