Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1900-07-05
STRONG By WILL POWER.
Many of EngIand's Heroes Were Dela-
cate Ones Famous Fighters
with Weak PhysiQues.

The soldier is so often looked upon
as being the embodiment of strength,
health and activity that it may be
something new to learn that many eel.
ebrated generals have as boys been
anything but robust or noted for the
virtues just mentioned, says the Lon.
don Express.
Lord Roberts is the most signal ~
ample of this. AS a lad he was so deli
IT that when he went out to India or
his first voyage there as a soldier it was
generally supposed by his most init
mate friends and relatives that his life
would necessarily be short, so pale and
delicate was he. We have several in.
dependent accounts of how the crew OF
the ship and some of his messmstes
pitied the tender-looking young Anglo
Indian and prophesied that an early
grave would be his!
But the Indian climate, his native eli
mate too. set him up and worked Won
ders in him. How have these prophets
of evil been falsified by what we in our
time see and know to-day!
The duke of Wellington was not at all
strong when a lad, and his mother was
often much concerned about his health.
At Elton he got the reputation of being
rather a silent, taciturn. somewhat sui
! len youth. But it is generally believed
F.! now that this was as much due to his
delicate health as to any individual
characteristics of his own tempera-
ment.
Arthur Wellesley could not stand the
knocking about and rough-and-tumble
life that some of his Eton friends en-
joyed at that time, and they were not
slow to make him aware of the fact.
Rochefort Mcguire, whose recent adj
ventures in Kimberley and help to the
garrison have made his name more
almost given up" when a boy, so poor
was his general health.
His destined career had to be
changed for no other reason than that
! his health would not stand it, and he
had to go out to the Cape in orderto
seek that health which seemed to be
denied him in England. Happily he
found it there, and found fortune, too,
at the same time; so he, at any rate,
cannot now moan his fate.
/ Mcguire found at the Cape a man
still more influential than he himself
was to become. a man who also had had
to leave England and the prospect of
being a clergyman. owing to his weak
state of health. This man had once
been intended for a parson. like his IA
Their. and would have perhaps ended
his days as a country vicar had not bad
health stepped in and made him give
up that idea and set out for Cape Col
ony. Then his health became renewed,
and to-day the whole world knows
Cecil Rhodes almost as we'll as it knows
anybody.
Rhodes may we'll be called a soldier
as regards fighting, for, though not a
military man by profession, he was al
ways willing to take any share of fight
ing hat came along his way. and his
advice to doubtful Britons during the
late crisis in Kimberley, to "be like me
and sit tight" will not be readily for
gotten. 1t was said hat Kruger had
such an opinion of Cecil Rhodes fight
ing powers that he proposed to put him
into d cage when Kimberley was taken,
but it may be also said that Rhodes
would have shown the Beers no small
apGount of resistance first before he
had thus allowed himself to be taken,
for he is by instinct a fighting man
to the very bone.
Havelock was never very strong. and
as a boy was decidedly on the dark side
OF health. Even when a man his pale
face was a general subject of remark
among his followers. But they~all knew
his worth and courage when the time
of trial came.
Perhaps no civilian in this century
was more a born fighter than was Lord
Byron, had he been able to become a
real soldier. but he was kept back from
that by his deformity and by constant
bad health. Yet he went forth man
fully to help the Greeks in their strug-
giles for independence against the
Turks and persisted at Missolonghi.
The present kaiser has never been a
robust man, and as a lad was still more
delicate. His deformed arm always
gave him much trouble in affecting his
general health, especially in his
younger years. But he has, by his
splendid resolution and care. grown
Oul y IHis cOustdut DaU neaIIQ, anu
to-day he is a fighting man with whom
all Europe has to reckon-a man not
easily to be beaten in what he under
takes.
So that there is much hope for deli
cate boys after all. if they have the
right sort of British pluck in them.
Health and strength are largely q
matter of will power, after all.
Hobbies of Royalty.
All the members of the royal family
have cnrtnin hnhhioS Ofnh;nn h.A.-.