The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1892-12-29
OF WOMEN
Examples Which Prove That
They Can Rival the
Stronger Sex in
Supreme Mo-
mentS.
LADY DUNDONALD's SELF COMMAND
Many other Victories Won 10
Which the Recording Angel
Only Bears testimony.

July DtuIS ltSllmonys
\ Man is the stronger sex u~ndoubted-
lily, but which is the more heroic? The
very fact that we can ask this ques-
ption after the preliminary statement
shows that woman is. Heroism
means to triumph over your Owl
weakness, your own infirmity, over
the pressure of circumstances around
you, over temptations. dangers and
difficulties.
The silent workers, the noble
martyrs to principle, the uncomplain-
ing household drudges who sacrifice
themselves for husbands, brothers
and children, and do it not in face OF
an admiring audience, not t. win the
plaudits of the crowd, not to be
chronicled in story, but simply and
unostentatiously in the line of duty
these are the true TRANSPORTED band
of heroines. greater than any epic
heroes who conquer heroically Or
heroically fall.
Yet even in the more obvious sort of
heroism, even i'll the storm and stress
of worldly action, even as military
leaders, as conquerors, as potentates,
women have inscribed their naIues on
the most valiant pages of history. We
have all read stories of Zenobia, of
Semiramis. of Deborah, of Joan of
Arc. We have all heard of Artemisia,
nf GoRi0 in whom XorYnl
Boosted that he had found
His ablest, bravest counselor and chief.
Her whose conduct at the battle of
Salamis wrung from him the exclama-
ton that his men were behaving like
women, his women like men, little
knowing that in truth the highest
compliment he could pay his
women was that they were be-
Der how when Carras, queen of Car
cassone, was besieged in that town by
the Saracens, and they in their mas
culine pride tainted her for that she
should be spinning and not fighting,
she threw the taunt into their
faces by appearing in the very midst
with a lance wreathed around,
distaff1ike, with hemp, which she had
set aiame, and how ing~loriously they
fled away from her.
LADY DUNDoNALD'S BRAVERY.
In more recent history a less fami-
liar instance is that of Lady Dun
donald. Her husband, while in COM
mand of the Chilian fleet, got be-
Gained in his flagship under a bat
terry, whence he was assailed with
red-hot shot. In the face of that ter
rible fire the gunners retreated from
their posts. Neither threats nor en-
treaties were of avail. If the fire
were not returned the ship must in
eyitahly be destroyed with all on
board.
Lord Dundonald went down to tn e
cabin where his wife lay. IF a wo-
man sets the example," he cried, 1.-THE
men will be shamed out of their fear.
It is our only hope" Without a word
she rose and followed him. As she
stepped on deck she seemed to be con-
fronted by a flaming furnace of fire,
belching out death and destruction.
She calmly took a match and fired the
gun, which Lord Dundonald pointed.
The men were shamed. They return
ed to their posts. The battery was
silenced; the ship and it's crew were
saved.
One of the greatest achievements of
masculine heroism has always been
held to be the defense of the
pass at Thermopyl@. Modern histor-
ians have thrown grave doubt upon
the whole episode. They doubt that
there were only 800; they doubt
whether all or or even the majority of
Leonidas' troops remained to be slain.
But no historian has thrown any
doubt upon the story of the $50
peasant women of Switzerland who
during the French invasion of 1898
rushed to arms in response to the
patriotic aloquence of aged Martha
Giaz, and defended their homes until
1870 of them had been killed, and all
the rest more or less wounded.
These and similar stories show that
in the more obvious forms of heroism,
in the smoke and dust of battle,
women b play and have played as
gloriou5 d part as the most intrepid of