Livingstone and Stanley
Two of the greatest explorers of Africa are Livingstone and Stanley. Both forced themselves to the front among great men by sheer personal ability, exhibiting throughout their careers an extraordinary amount of determination to achieve success in whatever they took in hand.
Livingstone was a Scotchman, born in 1813, and at the age of ten began workin a factory. In his free time he studied, not only the more usual subjects, but also Latin and Greek. Later he took his degree in medicine, and then became a missionary in Africa.
In that vast continent he undertook and successfully fulfilled several journeys of exploration, but at the end of the seventh decadeof 19th century he disappeared for some years while on an expedition to discover the sources of the Nile. 'r
Stanley was a Welshman of poor parentage. When 15 years old, he sailed to America as a cabin boy. There he was adopted and educated by a merchant whose name — Henry Morton Stanley — he assumed, discarding the name of John Rowlands, by which he had hitherto been known. On the death of this merchant, he became penniless again, and for a time made a living by selling newspapers in the street.
After the American Civil War, in which he fought, he became a newspaper correspondent, and in 1869 Mr. Gordon Bennett, owner of the ‘New York Herald,’ asked him to ‘go and find Livingstone.’
Stanley undertook an expedition, in search of the great explorer, whom he found at the end of 1871. Having assisted him, Stanley returned to England in 1872, while Livingstone continued his work of exploration. In the following year Livingstone died in the heart of Africa. His body was brought to England, and laid among the many other great men at Westminster Abbey.
Stanley conducted several other useful expeditions in Africa. When exploring for an international society, president of which was the
King of Belgium, he was instrumental in founding the Congo Free State.
On his return he was received with much honor in England, and sat in the House of Commons for 5 years. He died in 1904, having been knighted a few years before his death. He, as .well as Livingstone, has left us several valuable literary works dealing .with the heart of Africa.
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Grace Darling
In the beginning of the 19th century on one of the Fame Islands off the coast of Northumberland, a girl was born at the Longstone Lighthouse. Her father, William Darling, was lighthouse keeper there for many long and lonely years.
Sometimes, alas! the monotony of their life was broken by a shipwreck in their neighborhood, but sometimes they were happy enough to rescue the sailors and passengers from the unfortunate ship.
Grace Darling, the keeper’s daughter mentioned above, was about 23 years old when, in 1838, S. S. Forfarshire was wrecked in sight of their lighthouse. Grace could see some people clinging to parts of the wreck, and she begged her father to try to save them.
The old man was no coward, but he felt it would be madness to try to reach them in his little boat, and he told his daughter so.
Then Grace said she would go alone, and at last her father could resist her no longer.
Oh, may they be able to last till we come! cried Grace, and then she and her father found themselves in their little boat, the sport of the angry sea.
At first they made a little progress, but then the sea seemed to drive them back. Although it had seemed, and still seemed, an impossibility, they at last by almost superhuman efforts reached the sailors, and found that there were 9 still alive. These were got with difficulty into the boat, and after some hours were landed at the lighthouse. Many, alas! had been drowned before the wreck was seen from the lighthouse, as the night had been very dark. ’
For many days the whole country rang with the name of Grace Darling, and her exploit is a worthy monument to the unselfishness and bravery of her sex. May her name live for ever!
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Raleigh
If we are right in believing that Sir Walter Raleigh was responsible for introducing the smoking of tobacco into England and also for bringing us our first potatoes, we shall have no difficulty in agreeing that his influence on our present daily life has been and still is very great indeed.
His having brought us these things, however, is only one incident in Raleigh’s life, which was spent in exploring the New World, fighting England’s enemies, giving advice and assistance to the Queen, and trying, unsuccessfully however, to found colonies in Virginia.
According to tradition, Raleigh’s coming under the direct notice of the Queen was due to his having thrown down his cloak to cover a dirty part of the road, over which the Queen had to walk.
James’s becoming King of England after the death of Elizabeth soon made a great change in the life of Raleigh. There were several reasons for his not being liked by the King. Most of these were rather childish, for example: James did not like smoking, so he disliked Raleigh for having brought the tobacco plant to England.
Although the reasons for disliking Raleigh were unimportant in themselves, they became very serious for him. After some time he was put into prison for plotting gainst the King. We have no reason for believing that he really plotted, but the result for him was the same, and he spent the next 12 years of his life in the Tower of London.
Much of this time he spent in writing his ‘History of the World.’ At last, by offering to find some hidden gold in America, he succeeded in getting his liberty and in being allowed to sail across the Atlantic again. Many had heard from the Indians about the hidden gold, but nobody had succeeded in discovering it.
Raleigh’s hopes of finding it were also disappointed, and so he .was obliged to lose either his life or his honour. For, since the beginning of his imprisonment 12 years before, had been under sentence of death, and before sailing he had agreed with James to give the gold on his return or his life.
Now by breaking his word and not returning, he could have saved his life, but he preferred dying with honour to living in dishonour. So he returned without having found the gold, and put his life into the hands of the King.
James of course, could have pardoned him but James was a friend of Raleigh’s bitter enemy, the King of Spain, so, in the hope of pleasing his royal friend, he put his undoubtedly true and loyal subject, Sir Walter, to death in the year 1618.
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A Tale of Two Millionaires
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Milton Petrie
Every morning billionaire Milton Petrie walked from his New York apartment and bought a newspaper from a ragged old man on the street corner.
One morning the man wasn’t there. Petrie learned that he was very ill and was in the city hospital. Immediately, Petrie went to the hospital and paid for the old man’s medical bills. Later, when the old man died, Petrie also paid for his funeral.
The old man was just one of many people that Milton Petrie helped with his money. Whenever he read about personal disasters in the newspaper, Petrie sent generous checks, especially to the families of police officers or fire fighters injured at work. He also sent checks to a mother who lost five children in a fire, and a beautiful model, whose face was cut in a knife attack.
It cost him millions of dollars, but he still had millions left. He said that he was lucky in business and he wanted to help those less fortunate than himself. “The nice thing is, the harder I work, the more money I can make, and the more people I can help.”
Milton Petrie died in 1994 when he was 92. His will was 120 pages long because he left $150 million to 383 people. His widow, Carroll, his fourth and last wife, said his generosity was a result of the poverty of his early years. His family was poor but kind-hearted. His father was a Russian immigrant who became a police officer, but he never arrested anyone because he was too kind. He couldn’t even give out a parking ticket.
Hetty Green
Henrietta (Hetty) Green was a very spoiled only child. She was born in Massachusetts in 1835. Her father was a millionaire businessman. Her mother was often ill, so from the age of two, her father took her with him to work and taught her about stocks and bonds. At the age of six, she started reading the daily financial newspapers and she opened her own bank account.
Her father died when she was 21, and she inherited $7.5 million. She went to New York and invested on Wall Street. Hetty saved every penny, even eating diner in the cheapest restaurants she could find. She became one of the richest and most hated women in the world. She was called “The Witch of Wall Street.” At 33, she married Edward Green, a multi-millionaire, and had two children, Ned and Sylvia.
Hetty’s stinginess was legendary. She always argued about prices in stores. She walked to the local grocery store to buy broken cookies that were much cheaper, and to get a free bone for her much loved dog, Dewey. Once she lost a two-cent stamp and spent the whole night looking for it. She hardly ever bought new clothes and often wore the same long ragged black skirt.
Worst of all, when her son, Ned, fell and injured his knee, she refused to pay for a doctor and spent hours looking for free medical help. In the end Ned’s leg was amputated. When she died in 1916 she left her children $100 million (worth $9.3 billion today). Her daughter built a hospital with her money.