great painter, George F. Watts, with its forty-eight tablets placed in
commemoration of certain heroes and heroines who died unknown in the
endeavor to save the lives of others. Here was name after name which
meant nothing, but story after story which meant everything. Tablet 1
was in memory of Tom Griffin, aged 21, a steamfitter, who on April 12,
1899, was scalded to death while trying to save his "mate" from an
exploded boiler; Tablet 3, in memory of Mary Rogers, stewardess of the
steamship Stella, who on March 30, 1899, went down with her ship after
embarking into life boats all the women passengers committed to her
care; Tablet 5, in memory of Elizabeth Boxall, aged 17, who on January
20, 1888, died from injuries received in trying to rescue a little child
from being run over; Tablet 8, in memory of Dr. Samuel Rabbath, officer
of the Royal Free Hospital, who died on October 20, 1884, from
diphtheria contracted by sucking through a glass tube into his mouth the
infected membrane from the throat of a strangling child; Tablet 10, in
memory of William Goodrum, aged 60, a railway flagman, who on February
28, 1880, stepped in front of a flying train to rescue a fellow-laborer,
and was instantly killed; Tablet 16, in memory of Ella Donovan, a woman
of the slums, who on July 28, 1873, entered a burning tenement to rescue
little children, not her own; Tablet 23, in memory of Henry Bristow, a
boy of 8, who on January 5, 1891, died from injuries received in trying
to save his little sister, aged 3, from being burned to death. And so
the tablets tell their pathetic tales! You read one after another until
your eyes are dimmed with tears and you can read no more. And then you
seat yourself for a moment in the quiet park, with all London roaring in
your ears, and you think of these humble men and obscure women who,
without the blare of any music or the flashing colors of any flag or the
thrilling excitement of charge and countercharge, "laid down their lives
for their friends." "Is my face cut?" said William Peart, a locomotive
driver commemorated on Tablet 2, as he was pulled from out the wreckage
of his exploded engine. He was told that it was. "Never mind," he
replied, with his last breath, "I stopped the train." Here is heroism of
a new type--dull, commonplace, everyday, without one trace of color or
romance. But for this very reason do I believe it to be heroism of a
higher type than that of the soldier.

But there is a second