The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-05-06
VICTORIOUS ENDS
OF FAMOUS MEN
UntimeIy Loss of Prof Curie
KeenIy Felt
HIS FATE NOT UNUSUAL
Many Noted Men Who Have Made
Themselves Felt in the World
Survived Great PerlIs to
Die Meanly.
.ttaehe in Pittsburg Dispatch.


Involuntarly the death of Prof Curie,
who was killed the other day by being
run over by a heavy dray in the streets
of Paris. recalls to mind the familiar lines
of Johnson on the equally inglorious end
ing of the life of Charles XII, the most
heroic figure in the history of Sweden,
who lost his life through well-aimed
musketf shot. while beseglng the little
Norwegian fortress of Frederekshaw:
His fall was destined for foreign strand,
petty fortress and a dubious hand,
He left a name at which the world grew
To point moral or adorn a tale.
So elaborate have been the obituaries
printed of Prof. Curie during the last
week or ten days that it would be super
huous to say anything more of his career
further than to express the opinion that
he was undoubtedly the greatest scientist
of the age-a man who could i'll be spared
by humanity-one of those master minds
that have brought light unto the world
Some papers and American ones at that,
do not hesitate even to declare that his
death was greater misfortune to man
kind than the recent calamity at san
Francisco for the reason that the poten-
tial aid of radium in combating cancer
alone compensates, from the broad hui
man viewpoint the tragedy of any war,
earthquake or fire. Yet radium was but
one of Curies discoveries, and engaged as
he was at the time of his death in further
exhaustive researches, there is no know
ing what other hidden elements OF nature
he would have been able to reveal to
bad t,o nv brew
ers dray.
Such Fates Not Rare.
Yet such fates as that by which he
has been overtaken, are by no means
rare among men who have made for
themselves a name in history, Indeed,
fate seems sometimes to delight in re-
serving the most inglorious endings for
the most brilliant of careers VINO can
forget the case of that German scientist
and explorer. DIR. SchnitZler, who was so
infinitely better known by his Turkish
name of Emin Pasha? When both Eng
land and Egypt withdrew from the Sou
dan in 1888, rather than attempt to hold
it against the Mahd Emin, who was
governor of one of the most important
provinces. declined to withdraw on the
ground that he could bring himself to
a bandon to the savagery of the Der
wishes all those natives who had remained
faithful to his rule-people whom he had
learned to love and admire, and who were
far too numerous to be sent out of the
country For several years Emin was
cut off from all intercourse with the
outer world The idea OF this white man
fighting all alone in Central Africa Tor
the cause of civilization against bar
bariansm. without any support or en-
couragement from without. ended by APP
pealng not only to his countrymen, but
to all Europe and America. Popular sem
fiment demanded that he should no longer
be left to his fate. A costly expedition
was equipped, and Sir Henry Stanley.
fter a march from the west coast or
A frIca lasting nearly year. came up
with Emin on the banks of the Nile near
I.ado. hard pressed by the Mahdi, but
still able to hold his own. AS Emin ABB
solutely refused to be rescued, or to
desert his post. Stanley resorted to the
heroic measure of taking him away
against his WILL at the same time en-
couraging an the natives who had re-
manned loyal TO follow him in his march
to the east coast of the Dark Continent,
The rescue expedition ultimately
reached Mombasa, the English seaport on
the African shore of the indian ocean,
where Emin was overwhelmed with BAN
quets and dinners. 1t was on one of these
festive occasions that Emin, cropping his
way along a dark corridor walked out
of second story window into space and
broke his neck. thus dying in the most
inglorious fashion, before he could even
start on his journey back to Europe
Death of Spoke.
Equally strange was the death of that
other great African explorer. Capt John
Speke who rediscovered the sources of
the Nile-for they had been known to the
ancients-and who first brought to our
knowledge the existence of those great
OH TanCnntxa and the
Victoria Nyanza. After having expert
enced hair -breadth escapes Of death from
saVages and wild beasts in the Dark Con-
tinent, he returned home to England.
only to shoot himself accidentally while
potting at rabbits.
1t was a gunshot too, that carried off
Gambetta. onesof the greatest statesmen
that France produced during the nine
teenth century. While endeavoring to
prevent his Egeria from blowing out her
brains so that she should no longer. be
drag on his success and an obstacle to his
becoming President he received the bull
let she had intended for herself.
Peel Fell From Horse.
The great Sir Robert Peel who was
killed by fall from his horse in the
neighborhood of Buckingham palace, at
the very height of his career furnishes
another Illustration of the caprice of fate.
The same may be said of the death of
that famous bishop, Samuel WHEREFORE
of Winchester. whose life was brought
to a sudden close by fall from his
horse. Lord Londonderry, who, while
still Viscount Castlereagh represented
England at the International Congresses
of Vienna and Verona and who for
many years directed the foreign policy
of England, cut his throat, driven thereto.
it is said, by blackmailers
The first Napoleon's most famous mar
shall, Berthier, Prince and Duke of Wag-
ram, after passing unscathed, not merely
through all the long series Of Frances
campaigns in Europe. but also through
the American War of Independence on
the staff of Lafayette, killed himself by
jumping out of a window of the hotel
where he was staying in the little Ger
man town of Bamberg, unable. 1t Is de-
clared to bear any longer the oboquy
excited by his ungrateful desertion of
that great Emperor to whom he owed his
coronet
Marshal Ney, whom Napoleon was wont
to describe as the bravest of the brave.
was shot down as a traitor by file of
soldiers at Paris in 1915. His grandson
and successor, the brilliant cavalry gem
eraI, Michael Ney Duke of Elchngen.
was found dead through violence in a de-
serted house at Croissy on the Seine, near
Paris under shady circumstances.
Murat brother-in-law of the first
Napoleon, and the most efficient of all
the many rulers of Naples, was not only
shot down by a file of soldiers in 1915.
but his head was cut from his body in
order that 1t might be shown to his
Bourbon successor on the throne OF
Naples.
- Shelley Was Drowned.