The Emmett index. [volume] (Emmett, Idaho) 1893-1925, 1899-12-01
DEATH WAS CHEATED
NARROW ESCAPES OF SOME EN-
GLISH GREAT MEN.
Some Narrowly Missed Dissolution In
Infancy, and Others just slid from
Under in Youth-Their Living Was
Productive Of Important Results

1r,der in Youth-Their Living Was
Productive Of Important Results.
If death. after knocking at the
door" had claimed its victim, Great
Britain would have lost valuable son
in the person Of Admiral Sir Harry
Keppel, the grand old man of the
fleet" According to nurses and doc
tors. Sir Harry Keppel should have
ended his career ninety years ago.
When the admiral was three weeks old
he was given up as dead, and arrange
ments were made for the burial. When,
however, the undertaken and his as
sistants brought In the coffin the young
fellow thought It was high time 10
protest, and by vigorous knocks he
made clear his intention to see the
twentieth century, a feat which he
seems now likely to perform.
The English feet nearly was robbed
of another distinguished admiral. Sir
Novel; Salmon, G. @. b., when he still
was wearing lieutenant's stripes. 1t
was at the siege of Lucknow, when the
soldiers were trying to scale a wall
twenty feet high, behind which the en-
envy was massed. Lieut.. Salmon brave
" undertook to climb tree Overhang
ing this wall and commanding a perfect
feet view of the other side, but unluck-
lily he was seen by the enemy, and
brought down from his perch by rifle
volley. The doctors pronounced the
brave young officer dead, and his name
appeared in the list of killed; but fate
had other plans for Lieut.. Salmon, and
he lived to receive the Gross for Val
or" and to become an admiral and first
naval A. D. G. to the Queen.
Lord Wolseley, as is pretty generally
known, was similarly KILLED" in the
Crlmea, as far as human skill could de-
termine, but though he was riddled
completely with fragments of shell and
stones and his right eye destroyed he
had no intention whatever of dying I'M
til he had completed the brilliant career
which he had then scarcely begun.
Twenty-eight years ago one of the
AiAO9N H'PhAaA PupAAo VI AlE DlouOU
StOrtford Grammar School was attack
ed by consumption, and after fighting
1t gravely and hopefully for some time
the doctors told him and his father,
the vicar of Bishops Stortford, that he
had only three months to live unless he
left England. When the boy left for
Natal there were few dry eyes among
the many who said what they thought
was a last good-by to him, for none
dared to hope that they would see him
again. To-day the doomed consump-
tive is the robust and vigorous Cecil
Rhodes.
1t was surely one of the strangest
condolences that a few years after
Cecil Rhodes had fled from death in
England a young medical man who
had passed through a brilliant student
ship and who had won fame as an ath-
lete should have been sent to the Cape
ON precisely the same life-saving Jour
ney. In England Leander Starr Jane
son had but a few months of life TO
hope for. In South Africa life and n
career were awaiting him; and by an
other strange coincidence it was while
Or. jameson, with restored health.
was practicing in Kimberley that Mr..
Rhodes came to consult him as a ma
tlent.
1t Is interesting to speculate what
might not have been if these two men
had never been driven from England in
quest Of health. DR.. Jameson might
nave been an obscure suburban doc
tor; and what would the map of Afr
ca have looked like to-day?
Eighty years ago little Willie Arm
strong was such a delicate bow that
his parents never hoped to rear him.
as they say in the north of England.
Every winter he was kept a close pris-
Oner in the house lest a chill should
carry him away, and every spring his
parents reloiced that they might keep
MN perhaps until another winter
| came.
but thanks to this excessive care.
WINE Armstrong grew up, and is to-
uay Lord Armstrong, a hale old man
on the verge of the nineties. who
can lay claim to having revolutionized
warfare and to have left one of the
most enduring marks of his century.
Inc Hon. Sir Charles Gavan Duffv
the grand old man of the colonies. was
so delicate as a boy, more than sew
en'y years ago, that he was not expect
Ell TO see manhood. Even in youth
ana much later years he suffered so
terribly from dyspepsia that life was
not TO be desired. But he, too. was of
tne "creaking gates which hang long"
ana Australia would be much poorer
To-Day II death had not passed him by.