Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/173



ATTHEW WEBB, whose great feats of swimming and untimely fate are still fresh in mind, was the son of a surgeon, and was born at Dawley. At twelve he was already a fine swimmer, and at fifteen, when on the Conway training ship, he had saved two lives from drowning. Our third portrait was taken just after his great swim from Dover to Calais, and our last portrait represents him just before his fatal attempt to swim the rapids of Niagara, which took place on July 24, 1883.