PHILOSOPHY IN SPORT MADE SCIENCE IN EARNEST.
FROM the Morning Herald of Wednesday we learn, that Sir Teem- BARD BRUNEL and Others, forming a deputation from the Royal Humane Society, waited upon Prince ALBERT a few days ago, "to request his acceptance of one of the Society's double-breaker ice- ladders, to be always in readiness for use when his Royal Highness enjoys the delightful and healthy recreation of skating.'
The ladder is "twenty-four feet in length "; "beautifully finished" ; and "it has been arranged that, as soon as the frost has set in, the Royal Humane Society shall send down to Windsor one of the most efficient and expert men in their employ to be in at- tendance when his Royal Highness skates, and who has a perfect knowledge of the mode of using the ladder should it be required."
Here is another triumph of humanity ! applied, too, even in a way which the Marquis of LONDONDERRY might sanction. If Prince ALBERT, in addition to his fondness for skating, has the slight- est leaning towards hydro.eathy, it will be out of his power to resist the temptation of the first twelve hours' frost and the double- breaker ice-ladder.
But this is not all. It has been said that the greatest truths are wronged if they are not linked with beauty ; and the " beautifully- finished " double-breaker is intended, if we mistake not, to furnish its own peculiar moral. Sir ISAMBARD BRUNEL and the Committee of the Humane Society are practical philosophers. The institution is not in a state of financial plethora ; but they have a meaning sufficient to justify them not only in the expense of the present, but in detaching "one of the most efficient" of their scanty force from his ordinary duties of rescuing silly multitudes, (who venture upon bad ice for no other reason than that they see a crowd upon it already,) to act as keeper through winter-days of a solitary gentle- man at Windsor, sufficiently sane to take care of himself, and to know that he has no business in the neighbourhood of the cracks. They feel that, in order to establish just principles, it is not suffi- cient merely to appeal to the higher sentiments. Artists may theorize for ever concerning the principles of taste and harmony of colour, and find no listeners ; but if they can persuade a lady of fashion to adopt their suggestions for a single evening, before a fortnight is over the " new design," in all fabrics from calico up- wards, figures in every shop. Acting upon this knowledge, the Humane Committee will contrive to preach a useful sentiment. Double ice-breakers will forthwith become the rage, and the ap- plication of the principle will doubtless be imitated and extended. His Grace the Duke of NORTHUMBERLAND has already ordered one ; and as it is impossible to say to what length human beings may go under the excitement of fashion, the idea may eventually come to be applied to all the slippery situations of life. It will, of course, at first have its run among the higher classes ; but it is just possible that it may at last become so excessively common as to lead us to inquire, if, instead of decreeing the whip and the gallows to that large class who are thrown where the world's waters are covered by the thinnest possible ice, and who, being "unable to read and write," are incapable of discerning the ordinary warnings, it might not be proper to employ "efficient men" not only to point out where the surface is " dangerous," but, even if this care should prove ineffectual and the footing of the luckless wretches should give way, to reverse the present system of pushing them further in, by having recourse to some plan kindly contrived upon the principle of the double-breaker.
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