John Whopper The Newsboy

Thomas March Clark was born at Newburyport Massachusetts on July 4 1812.[1] He graduated at Yale College in 1831; studied theology at Princeton and was licensed to preach as a Presbyterian in 1835. He became an Episcopalian in the following year and was rector of Grace Church Boston for seven years afterward holding charges in Philadelphia Hartford and Providence. In 1854 he was consecrated Bishop of Rhode Island and in 1899 on the death of Bishop John Williams of Connecticut became Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal church in America. His Reminiscences appeared in 1895; among his other works are Early Discipline and Culture (1852) and Primary Truths of Religion (1869).He died in Newport Rhode Island on September 7 1903 at age 91ExcerptTwo years ago last February I think it was on a Tuesday morning I started as usual very early to distribute my papers. I had a large bundle to dispose of that day and thought that if I took a short cut across the fields instead of following the road from Roxbury to Jamaica Plain I could go my rounds in much less time. I do not care to tell precisely where it was that I jumped over the fence; but it is a rough barren kind of spot which nobody has ever done any thing to improve.After walking about a third of a mile I began to think that I had better have kept to the turnpike; for I found that I was obliged to clamber over an uneven rocky place among trees and bushes and shrubs that grew just thick enough to bother me so that I hardly knew where to put my feet. All at once I lost my balance and felt that I was sliding down the side of a smooth steep rock; while underneath to my horror I saw what looked like a circular cave or well some five or six feet in diameter. I tried to grasp the rock with my hands and ground my heels as hard as I could against the surface but it was of no use; down I slipped faster and faster until at last I plunged feet foremost into the dark hole below. For a moment I held my breath expecting to be dashed to pieces; and oh how many things I thought of in that short minute! It seemed as if every thing that I had ever done came back to me especially all the bad things; and how I wished then that I had lived a better life! I thought too of my poor mother and my little brother and sister at home and how they would wait breakfast for me that morning;