July 1892 - The Emma Hardinge Britten Archive

The Destroyer and Saviour of Mankind. 155
experienced coachman, and being, in those ante-railroad
days, temporarily engaged, he was thus enabled to make
his way to the sea. There he obtained, by persistent
effort, an opportunity of returning to his own country in
the capacity of a steward on board a passenger ship. On
landing, with only a few shillings in his pocket, he worked
his way, by doing all sorts of odd jobs on the road, until he
reached the metropolis. H ere, sustained by a strange
new-born resolve, courage, and ingenuity, although he
endured untold privations and trials, he managed to pick
up a living. At length he met by chance a legal acquaintance
whom he had known in his more prosperous days,
and from him he humbly solicited and finally obtained
regular work as a clerk. Although he was reduced to'
the necessity of living on a mere pittance, he saved up
his small salary ta take evening lessons in shorthand.
He soon became an expert reporter, and this enabled him
to earn a good incame, first in the law caurts, and subsequently
in Parliament.
Taking to wife the young girl he had betrayed, he
began indeed to realize the satisfaction af building up his
own fortune, home, and family. Being endawed with a
fertile brain and vivid imagination, the subject af my
story turned his attention ta autharship, and in this
capacity the name he had assumed when he renaunced
that which his father had given him, saon became widely
celebrated.
I met with this gentleman in his old age, and in connectian
with certain literary wark. At that time his name
was no less renawned as an authar than honoured for his
maral worth and nobility of character. Far reasons
unnecessary to state, he communicated ta me his history
as given above, adding abundant evidences of the truth
of what he narrated.
Referring on ane accasion ta some of the most