What a lucky escape this young man had when an horrific accident befell his eye, whilst watching an angler on Stamford Meadows. But who was to blame – the angler for not looking properly before casting or the youth for standing too close?
“A remarkable accident happened last week to one of the sons of a respectable tradesman in Stamford. Walking in the meadows on the banks of the Welland, he appraoched a person who was angling in the river, and he stood for a few seconds to look on: the angler drew out his line, and gave it the usual swing with the intention of placing the float in a new situation, when by an extraordinary accident the hook struck the youth who was looking on, and actually fastened together both the lids of one of his eyes, so as completely to close them. It was feared that the barb had also penetrated the orb of the eye; but on promptly resorting to the surgery of Messrs. Merveilleus and Burdett, it was found practicable to extricate the hook by a simple cut of the eye-lids, and that the eye itself was not at all injured, although the hook had pierced and connected the lids just in front of the pupil, and the very smallest increase of the depth of the puncture must have been fatal to the sight. It is supposed that the youth involuntarily winked as the line was whirled by the angler, and that at that instant the hook entered and fastened together the two eye-lids.”
The Stamford Mercury, 5th August, 1825.