The Warwickshire Herald. — 1894-01-04 (Birmingham, West Midlands, England)

EELFARE.  The greater number of eels visit the sea, and the "passing up a river of the young eels is one of the most curious sights of natural history. . . . In the Thames this eelfare takes place in spring, in other rivers in the summer; and some idea of the number of these young eels, each about three inches long, may be gathered from the record of Dr. William Roots, who lived at Kingston in 1832. He calculated that from sixteen to eighteen hundred passed a given point in the space of a minute of time. . . . In large and deep rivers, where they probaby find the current strong, they form themselves into a closely-compacted company, "a narrow, but long-extended, column." . . . The perseverance of these little creatures in overcoming any obstructions they may encounter is quite extraordinary. The large flood-gates, sometimes 20 feet high, to be met with in the Thames, might be supposed sufficient to bar the progress of a fish the sue of a darning-needle, but nothing can stop them. As one writer says, speaking of the way they ascend floodgates and such like barriers: "Those which die stick to the posts ; others which get a little higher meet the same fate, until a sufficient layer of them is formed to enable the rest to overcome the difficulty of the passage." The mortality resulting from such " forlorn hopes" greatly helps to account for the difference in number of young eels on their upward migration, and of those who return down stream in autumn.—A Book of the Bunning Brook: And of Stilt Waters'. By Lady Colin Campbell.  SINGULAR DEATH ON THE rump. It was while William was conducting the assault on Namur, under a fire of round shot, grape, and musketry, he suddenly saw with surprise, among the officers of his staff, Mr. Michael Godfrey, Deputy. Governor of the Bank of England, who had visited headquarters to make arrangements relative to an advance of money for the payment of the army, which was then in arrears—a pretty common case in those days, and even down to those of the Peninsular War. This gentleman was a near relation to Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, whose murder excited so much interest during the reign of Charles 11. "Mr. Godfrey," said the king, "you ought not to run these risks ; you are not a aoldier, and can be of no use to us here." "Sire," replied Godfrey, "I run no tnore risk than your Majesty." "Not so," said William. "I am where it is my duty to be, and I may, without persumption, commit my life to God's keeping; but you, sir—" Ere the king could conclude, a cannon-shot from the castle of Namur laid Godfrey dead at his feet. Quoting other authorities, Macaulay states that "it was not found, however that the fear of being Godfreyed '—such was during some time the cant phrase—sufficed to prevent idle gazers from coming from the trenches. Though William forbade his coachmen, footmen, and cooks to expose themselves, he repeatedly saw them skulking near the most dangerous spotaand trying to get a peep at the fighting. He was sometimes, it is said, provoked into horsewhipping them out of range of the French guns; and the story, whether true or false, is very characteriatic."—Britiakßattles on Land and Sea.  •