HOW AN AUSTRALIAN SKATED.

Dunstan Times, Volume 640, Issue 640, 24 July 1874, Page 3

HOW AN AUSTRALIAN SKATED.

The following amusing description of the experience of an Australian on the ice we take from the Glasgow Herald:—“l am now in bed. I have been out skating —that accounts for it. Since the praises of skating bavq. been dinned into my ears for the last three or four months, I determined, at the first opportunity, to avail myself of that pleasure—with winged feet to cleave the frozen way. It came about thus : 1 started with the very highest hopes and the best intentions ; but have returned, broked in body and wounded in spirit, a wiser and a sorer man. A kind friend obligingly lashed my feet firmly to a pair of skates, told me to observe what he did, and to follow- him. 1 observed. Having fulfilled the first part of his instructions in so far as observation went, I now concluded to try tiro second part by attempting to follow him, and immediately sat down violently. Hitherto sitting down was by no means a dangerous proceeding ; but now- 1 can assure any one that it becomes very painful when done iuvoluntuiily, and is not unaccompanied by a certain amount of risk. I was replaced on my feet, and made a second attempt to follow- my friend. I now think that I knowhow- the acrobats on the stage perform their feats of tumbling. I threw the most successful double somersault that lias been seen this season, the difference between my feat and the acrobats being that I bad neglected to have a soft mattrass with mo to drop on. A severe pain in the small of my back and stiffness of the neck nowreminded me that it was not safe to throw somersaults on the ice. 1 shall remember this iu future. 1 was again placed in an upright position, and, nothing daunted, essayed a third start. To this moment I can’t make out why those skates bolted w : th me. 1 was carried at a tremendous pace : I could not stop myself ; the song of * The Cork Leg’rushed madly through my brain : and on coming to 1 felt as if I bad been in a severe railway colision, and found that I had brought down several ladies (pieces of whom were strewn about) and an elderly gentleman who was looking on. However, after this, I felt that 1 could go, and now my progress was assured. Then some person, who was evily disposed, hinted something abaut ‘The figure of eight.’ He did it, and urged me to try it. I tried it. My legs soon became so much mixed up and tangled that 1 had to lurch violently on to the ico, receiving ,a mom. disastrous blow on ray occiput. Then my friends untied the knots iu my legs. The hist recollection I have of that day was being tenderly conveyed from the scene iu a cab. As I said above, lam now- iu bed, wrapped up in one immense poultice. The two doctors who attend me say there is a fracture of the clavicle, dislocation of the ulna, with fracture of the coronocd process, and that [ must keep myself quiet, and that they fear, from the symptoms, there may be fracture of the base. These injuries arc learnedly severe and very painful, and I would like you to publish this as a warning to any stranger who, in an unguarded moment, may timorously attemp to skate. I shall never more go on the ico till I know how to skate.”