Fatal Sensational Performance.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1257, 24 January 1883, Page 2

Fatal Sensational Performance.

The last San Francisco mail telegrams brought among other sensational recitals, an account of the death of an actress on the \ boards of a Cincinnatti theatre, she having ' been shot dead in a scene wherein the chief actor shoots an apple fiom her head while pointing the rifle backward over his shoulder. An American paper gives the following account of how the accident happened:—“The weapon is a Stevens rifle, 38 calibre, breechloading, and was made six years ago especially for Mr Frayne. He always loads and cares for it himself, and just before going on the scene he had carefully examined it, and found it apparently all right. Previously 1 in the act, he sat down in a chair while a J saucer was hung above his head, shot through an apple on the head of a member of the company, hit a target behind the apple, discharging another gun, the bullet of which broke the saucer hanging over him. In order to make the backward snot, a small mirror, facing the trigger, is fastened to the stock, and he sights by means of this. Just at the critical moment when the weapon was discharged, the pin or spring-latch holding the barrel in its place snapped, allowing the steel tube to drop, throwing the breeA up and the muzzle down, Of course, this deflected the bullet from its proper course, and in stead of hitting the apple, it went lower, and buried itself in the brain of the actress. While it appears to be an exceedingly difficult feat, it is in reality one that almost any ordinary marksman could perform, as the apple is placed on the lady’s hat, which is " raised four inches above her head, thus allowing the ball to go quite a little out of its way without doing serious harm. Beneath the hat is coiled the lady’s hair, while above this, for additional protection, is a small iron plate, placed at an angle so as to throw the ball upward, were it by any mischance to go astray. The spring which had caused all the mischief was also picked up on. the floor a of the theatre, fully 20ft from the stage. The day after the mishap the actor Frayne was charged with manslaughter, but was acquitted.”