Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1869 — A Brave and Noble Boy. [ARTICLE]

A Brave and Noble Boy.

The New York Sun gives a brief chapter oh the “Heroism pf Humble Life,” and appends the following touching illustration : Perhaps the finest of these modern instances occurred two weeks ago on board an English steamer. A little ragged boy, aged about nine years, was discovered on the fourth day of the outward voyage from Liverpool to New York, and carried before the first mate, whose duty was to deal with such cases. When questioned as to the object of his being stowed away, and who brought him on board, the boy, who had a beautiful sunny face, and eyes that looked like the very mir rors of truth, replied that his step father did it, because he could not afl'jrd to keep him, nor to pay his passage out to Halifax, where he had an annt who was well off, and to whose house he was going. The mate did not believe the story, in spite of the winning face and truthful accents of the boy. He had seen*too much of stowaways to be easily deceived by them, he mid; and it was his firm conviction that the boy had been brought on board, and Sruvided w lth-fbodDy the MTldrs.' The ttle fellow was very roughly handled in consequence. Day by day he was questioned and requestioned, but always with the same result. He did not know a sailor on board, and bis father alone bad secreted him and given kirn the food which he ate. At last the mate,wearied by the boy’s persistence in the same story,and perhaps a little anxious to inculpate the sailors, seized him one day by the collar, and dragging him to the fore, told him that unless he confessed the truth in ten minutes from that time he would hang him on the yard arm. He then made him sit down under, it on the deck. All around him were the passengers and sailors of the mid-day watch, and in front of him stood the inexorable mate, with his chronometer in his hand, and the other officers of the ship by his side. It was the finest sight, said our informant, that we ever beheld, to see the pale, proud, sorrowful face of that noble boy—his head erect, his beautiful eyes bright through the tears that suffused them. When eight minutes had fled, the mate told him he had but two minutes to lire, and advised him to speak the truth and save his life, but he replied with the utmost simplicity and sincerity, by asking the mate if he.might pray. The mate said nothing, but nodded his head, and turned as pale as a ghost, and shook with trembling like a reed with the wind. And there, all eyes turned on him, this brave and noble little fellow, this poor waif whom society owned not, and whose 'own step-father could not care for him—there he knelt with clasped hands and eyes uplifted to heaven, while he repeated audibly the Lord’s Prayer, and prayed the dear Lord Jesus to take him »o heaven. Our informant adds that there then occurred a scene as of Pentecost Sobs broke from strong, hard hearts, as the mate sprang forward to the boy and clasped Him to his bosom, and kissed him and blessed him, and told him how sincerely he believed his story, and how glad he was that he had been brave enough to £aoe death and be willing to sacrifice his owa Mfe for the truth of his own word.

—The suicide ol a rich miser is reported .in the London papers. She was a widow named Harriet Gray, 81 yean of age. She was worth over £40,000, but was in the habif of denying herself tbs common accessaries of life. She kept one candle in the house, and whenever her nephew called, upow her to see hss,«he made it a rule to light it, but when he was going away she blew it out as it was her habit to sit la the dark. The house in which she lived was in a filthy condition. The jury returned a verdict of suicide while in a state of temporary insanity. —The “temporalities” 6f the Catholic disease of Detroit amount to man than $£,000,000.