"On the day of the accident Leroux went to the park alone after lunch, and on his arrival at the ornamental water, found that the ice had been broken all round the shore of the lake by the men employed by the Royal Humane Society, with the object of preventing people from getting on to the ice. At the same time several servants of the Society were doing their best to persuade the more adventurous spirits who had got on to the ice by means of planks, to leave it. At that time there were probably not more than three or four hundred people on the whole expanse of the ornamental water. At least they appeared to be very thinly scattered over it, compared with the crowds of a few days before, when the ice was sound and strong, before the thaw had set in.
"Having come to the park to skate, and being perhaps of a somewhat self-willed and adventurous disposition, Leroux put on his skates, and watching his opportunity, got on to the ice, which though quite three inches in thickness, was seamed in every direction with a multiplicity of cracks, through which the water constantly welled up and ran over the surface. It was indeed evident that the solid ice-slab with which the lake had been originally covered was now formed of innumerable small pieces, really independent one of another, but still fitting closely together like the sections of a child's puzzle after they have been put in their places. Leroux himself never doubted that it was the breaking of the ice for the space of three or four feet all round the shores of the lake, which allowed room for the cracks in the unbroken ice gradually to widen until at last the whole sheet broke into separate pieces. As the skaters passed to and fro upon it, the whole surface of the ice-sheet seemed to rise and sink in response to their passage, and every moment the gaps gaped wider.
"It was getting on towards four o'clock in the afternoon, and Leroux was just then right in the middle of the lake, midway between the largest island and the bridge leading towards the Park Road, when he heard a cry behind him, and looking round saw that the ice was breaking in the direction of the bridge. It was a sight which he never forgot. Right across the whole breadth of the lake the sections into which the ice-sheet had been divided by the cracks were disengaging themselves one from another. The line of breaking advanced steadily towards where the boy was standing, each separate section of ice as the pressure was removed from behind, first breaking loose, and after being tilted into the air, again falling flat into its place. As no one fell into the water when the ice first broke up, the pressure which was the immediate cause of the catastrophe must have been exerted from a distance, and it was probably the weight of the people on the ice some way off which caused it to bulge where it first broke to such an extent as to detach some of the smaller sections which were already really separated one from another by the ever-widening cracks.
"There was a regular panic amongst the comparatively small number of people between Leroux and the point near the bridge where the ice first commenced to break up, and they all went flying along as fast as their skates would carry them, straight down the centre of the lake towards the narrow channel between the two islands in front of them. At the same time there was a stampede for the shore from every part of the lake, and as the great bulk of the people then on the ice were near the edge when it so suddenly commenced to break up, most of them either got to land without assistance, or being caught in the breaking ice when within a rope's throw of the shore, were subsequently rescued; but every one who got into the water amongst the thick heavy ice-slabs at any distance from the shore was drowned, and most of these unfortunate people disappeared immediately beneath the heavy slabs of ice, between which they fell into the water, and which closed over them at once.
"When the ice first began to break up, Leroux could not help standing still for a few moments, and watching the rapidly advancing line of breakage, and then when he turned to run for it or rather skate for it, he was quite alone, and at some little distance behind the crowd of people who had first taken the alarm. Suddenly there was a wild, despairing cry ahead, and Leroux saw that the ice was breaking up in the narrow channel between the two islands. At this juncture many people undoubtedly lost their heads as they skated right into the broken ice and almost all of them at once disappeared. It was between the two islands that the greatest loss of life occurred, as of the forty-nine bodies subsequently recovered in different parts of the lake, twenty-four were found in close proximity to one another at this spot, and yet there was scarcely a head to be seen at the time of the accident above the broken ice, as the weight of the heavy slabs forced those who fell in between them under water almost immediately. Although he was only a boy of fifteen at this time, he had never missed a chance of falling through weak or rotten ice every winter since he first went to school, and these various experiences had no doubt given him a good deal of self-confidence. At any rate he felt neither frightened nor flurried by the somewhat alarming circumstances of the position in which he now found himself, but quickly made up his mind as to the best course to adopt to save his life. As the ice had already broken up both before and behind him, but was still solid immediately behind him he stopped short where he was, and lay down at full length on the longest piece of ice he could see which was free from widely open cracks. He had scarcely done so, when the wave of breakage which had commenced near the bridge passed him, all the great cracks with which the ice-sheet was seamed opening to such an extent that every separate slab became detached. Many of these slabs were first tilted a little into the air, as had happened when the ice first broke up near the bridge, but they immediately fell flat again into their places, so that the whole of the ice-sheet in the central part of the ornamental water seemed to be in one piece, though in reality the cracks which divided it into innumerable small slabs were now so wide that each piece was independent the one of the other, and most of them would not have been large enough to support the weight of a man standing near their edge, without heeling over and precipitating him into the water.
"Fortunately for Leroux the ice had not been broken round the edge of the largest island in the lake to his left, and although the cracks had opened all round where he lay, as the wave of breakage passed, to such an extent as to have made it impossible to have walked or skated across the disintegrated slabs, without tilting one or other of them, and so falling into the water, yet he was only a short distance from the unbroken ice-sheet which rested on the island. The slab on which he was lying was quite large enough to bear his weight easily, and as he was out of all danger for the time being, he was able to look around and note what was going on. Directly the ice broke up there was, of course, tremendous excitement on the shore of the lake nearest the Zoological Gardens, where great crowds of people had been congregated the whole afternoon. Many gallant and successful attempts were made to rescue those who were fighting for life amongst the ice-slabs; but Leroux's impression was that no one was saved who had got into the water at any considerable distance from the shore. At the spot where the largest number of people were drowned, almost everyone who fell into the water disappeared immediately. Still here and there men kept their heads above water for a long time, and all these poor fellows might have been rescued, had it not been for the breaking of a rope. It was soon realized that it would be quite impossible to save the people who were so far out amongst the ice that a rope could not be thrown to them from the shore except by some special means, and someone hit upon the idea of dragging a boat to them over the ice. Leroux saw the boat pulled up over the still unbroken ice beyond the bridge, and long ropes were then made fast to its bow and carried over the bridge to each side of the lake, where willing hands enough were ready to work them. Had the ropes only held, the boat might have been pulled from one side or the other of the lake to all those who were in the water amongst the ice-slabs at a distance from the shore; but unfortunately before the boat had been pulled far beyond the bridge one of the ropes broke, and as it was then apparently recognized that they were not strong enough to stand the strain required, the experiment was not tried again. There were only two men in the water anywhere near Leroux, and they were about half-way between where he lay and the shore of the lake. He had seen them at first trying to force their way through the ice, but the slabs were so thick and heavy that they threatened at every moment to turn over on them, and they soon became exhausted and remained quiet. At last one of them disappeared and not long afterwards only a hat on the ice remained to mark the spot where his companion in misfortune had also sunk. Leroux soon realized that there was no hope of rescue from the shore, and indeed amidst all the excitement of saving or attempting to save the lives of those who had got into the water within reach he had probably been overlooked or possibly his position had been considered hopeless.
"At length when the light was commencing to fade Leroux made up his mind to try and reach the island on his left by crawling from one slab of ice to another. He fully realized that if he once got into the water he would never get out, but not being very heavy in those days, and by moving only very slowly and cautiously, and carefully selecting his route he succeeded at last in reaching the unbroken ice near the island. He had one very narrow escape, as a table of ice very nearly turned over on him before he had got sufficiently far on it to keep it flat. Luckily there was a much larger slab just beyond it, on to which he crawled without much difficulty. After crossing the island he again got on to unbroken ice and skated across it, to the shore near the lower bridge.
"By that time it was rapidly growing dusk, everybody whom it had been possible to reach with a rope from the shore had been rescued, and all the rest were still and cold beneath the ice. But although Leroux knew that a considerable number of people must have been drowned, until he saw the long list of those who had lost their lives in the next morning's 'Times' he had no idea that the disaster was so serious as it really was."
The following reminiscences of Selous as a schoolboy at Rugby were contributed to the 'Meteor,' the Rugby school paper (February 7th, 1917), by Canon Wilson, D.D.:—
"I first heard of Selous some time in 1863, soon after I became a house-master. The master of his preparatory school at Tottenham told me that a Mr. Slous—for so the name was then spelt—was going to enter his son at my house. 'Take my advice,' was the gist of the letter, 'and say your house is full; the boy will plague the life out of you.' I wrote to enquire the nature of the plague. 'He breaks every rule; he lets himself down out of a dormitory window to go birds'-nesting; he is constantly complained of by neighbours for trespassing; he fastened up an assistant master in a cowshed into which he had chased the young villain early one summer morning; somehow the youngster scrambled out, and fastened the door on the outside, so that the master missed morning school.'