an admirable article in the
_Shipwrecked Mariners' Magazine_ for October, 1862, 'he has cultivated
so successfully that in scores of instances he has been able to employ
it for the salvation of life and property. Perhaps the history of no
other living person more fully displays the value of this art than John
Ellerthorpe. Joined with courage, promptitude, and steady
self-possession, it has enabled him repeatedly to preserve his own life,
and what is far more worthy of record, to save not fewer than
thirty-nine of his fellow creatures, who, humanly speaking, must
otherwise have met with a watery grave.'

[Sidenote: HIS RECKLESS DARING.]

It is but right to state that, in the early period of his history, a
thoughtless disregard of his own life, and an overweening confidence in
his ability to swim almost any length, and amid circumstances of great
peril, often led him to deeds of 'reckless daring,' which in riper years
he would have trembled to attempt. Respecting most of the following
circumstances he says, 'I look upon those perilous adventures as so many
foolish and wicked temptings of Providence. I have often wondered I was
not drowned, and attribute my preservation to the wonder-working
providence of God, who has so often 'redeemed my life from destruction,
and crowned me with loving kindness and tender mercies.'

And certainly we should remember that heroism is one thing, reckless
daring another. Two or three instances will illustrate this. A few years
ago Blondin, for the sake of money, jeopardized his life at the Crystal
Palace, by walking blindfolded on a tight-rope, and holding in his hand
a balancing pole. In so doing he was foolhardy, but not heroic. But a
certain Frenchman, at Alencon, walked on one occasion on a rope over
some burning beams into a burning house, otherwise inaccessible, and
succeeded in saving six persons. This was the act of a true hero. When
Mr. Worthington, the 'professional diver,' plunged into the water and
saved six persons from drowning, who, but for his skill and dexterity as
a swimmer, would certainly have met with a watery grave, he acted the
part of a 'hero;' but when, the other day, he made a series of nine
'terrific plunges' from the Chain Pier at Brighton--a height of about
one hundred and twenty feet--merely to gratify sensational sightseers,
or to put a few shillings into his own pocket, he acted the part of a
foolhardy man. Can we wonder that he was within an ace of losing h