The book is part of “Dyer Brothers’ Illustrated Penny Library of Deeds worth recording”.
No preface
This was a penny publication in pamphlet form affordable for working-class readers.
In “A Brave Exploit in Newfoundland”, men from a fishermen’s village endanger their own lives to save shipwrecked people: [7] “The Royal Humane Society of England never bestowed its rewards to greater advantage than by presenting to Alfred Moores a silver medal and to four of his most intrepid companions each a similar memento in bronze. These mementoes will serve a double purpose, by inciting the rising youth of Ponch Cove to similar deeds of prowess, and by commanding for their possessors the esteem of every lover of mankind.”
In “Heroism in a Mine“, seven miners in the Welsh Rhondda Valley save colleagues from a flooded mine; this accident had been a nation-wide media event: [13] “Why should the chief decorations for valour be confined to the soldier reeking from the carnage of the battlefield. At any rate, in these valleys, the solitude of which is only disturbed by the whistle of the passing locomotive and the rattle of the engines on the pit bank, as long as they live these will be marked men, and their deeds, like former deeds of the race to which they belong, will be the theme of bards at many an Eisteddfod.”
In “A Quarryman’s Noble Sacrifice”, a quarryman removes a stone from the rails to prevent an approaching train from derailing and loses his life through this deed.
“A Brave Policeman” saves people during a fire.
Epigraph [3]
“Many a mind of richest work,
In many a man of low estate,
Illumes the bye-way of the earth,
Unseen, but good; unknown, but great.”
Contents
A Brave Exploit in Newfoundland 3Heroism in a Mine 7
A Quarryman’s Noble Sacrifice 13
Presence of Mind and Body 15
A Self-Sacrificing Rescue 16
A Brave Policeman 17