Sporting Incidents in the Life of Another Tom Smith. (Chapman
and Hall.)—The other Tom Smith presupposed by this title-page (not this other Tom Smith, but the other other Tom Smith) is Thomas !Whe- t= Smith, whose life was published a short timo ago, and whose ad- ventures are to be outdone by those in the present volume. We have no wish to decide between the two. It is certainly a wonder to us that both the Smiths did not break their necks at a very early period of
their sporting lives. The present hero ought to have broken his when he was a boy, and was left hanging by one hand to a lath forty feet
from the ground. Escaping this time, he ought to have been shot a
few months later, when he received a full charge in his head. When once he had survived these two mishaps, it was perhaps natural that no amount of falls should harm him, and that he should be able, as ho boasted,
to reduce falling to a science. It must be evident from his escapes that he had an iron constitution and great presence of mind. The latter quality was most conspicuous when, being on a visit to Lord
Fitzhardiuge, he saw his host's two favourite bull-dogs tearing over the lawn after him, and he had nerve enough to throw down his red handkerchief and halloo them towards it. Yet he was not a mere hard rider and sportsman, as we might conclude from the general stories of him, and from his saying that a man who would shoot a fox would shoot his own father. He made a plan for the sewerage of London and for the Thames Embankment which might almost have served as a model for the works of the Metropolitan Board. He also invented a locomotive battery on the plan of an iron-clad ship, which was pro- nounced by the Ordnance Department a decided novelty, though "cir- cumstances did not call for its adoption at present."
Previous page
