ECHOES OF THE WEEK

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2217, 26 April 1880, Page 2

ECHOES OF THE WEEK

The morbid craving- for the thrilling and the .sensational which is so marked a characteristic of the amusement-loving public of to-day is much to ho deplored. Tin’s i-; an age of excitement, and a public exhibition, provided it be only sensational enough, is morally certain to prove a paying concern ; in professional parlance it means a <( big draw,” and will be a hundred limes more successful, in a pecuniary sense, than a concert of highclass music ora popular scientific lecture. It is hv no nu-,-ms uncommon to hear neoplo of orthodox views talk about: tinfolly and the wickedness of those who make a trade of imperilling their limbs and lives for the amusement of others, but those philanthropic individuals entirely overlook the fact that the fault lies not so much with the rope-walker and the trapezist as with (he public who by its patronage countenances and encourages the very things it can be so virtuously indignant about. So long as a demand exists, as at present, for the dangerous and tbe sensational clement, just so long will there bo people ready to risk their lives to supply it. I have been led to make these remarks by the the account in a recent Home paper of the accident that befell Za'O, a young female gymnast, performing at the Royal Aquarium, Westminster. Most of your readers will bo familiar with the difficult and perilous feat accomplished by this performer. Standing on a circular platform in the Great Hall of the Aquarium, Zlvo is by means of a powerful spinal spring, concealed beneath the woodwork, suddenly shot into midair, like a cork from a pop-gun. She now turns a number of rapid aerial summersaults from one trapeze to another, until she is at length landed once more on terra, firma, amid a storm of applause, and breathlessly bows her acknowledgments to the people who have paid their money to see her risk her life. One Saturday afternoon in January last, cither through the stupidity or tbe carelessness of the operator or else some defect in the machine, Zieo was propelled to a much greater height than usual ; the force with which she was thrown up rendering her quite powerless to help herself, and she consequently dropped like a stone to the ground, passing clean through the weak netting placed for her protection beneath, and narrowly escaping dashing her brains out against the iron girders of the gallery. “ She fell close to my son,” says a correspondent of the London “ Times,” “her log touching him as she passed. lie was the first person who picked her up and assisted her to the table on which she was placed. She fell at bis feet with an appalling crash which was heard all over the building. One side of her face appeared black from cxtravasatecl blood, her teeth projected through her cheek, her body was quivering in the most violent manner, she was perfectly unconscious. The spectacle of a woman scantily clothed, exhibiting herself in dangerous evolutions, in which at any moment, from the carelessness or stupidity of the assistant, she may he destroyed is unfemininc, and surely not a thing to he encouraged by an enlightened people.” One would certainly have imagined that this was a ease for the prompt decisive action of the Home Secretary, who might have been expected in the name of common decency to have prohibited a repetition of the performance. From the “ Daily Telegraph ” of Feb. however, we learn that “ Z;eo had sufficiently recovered from tlic effects of her accident to ro-appear, and go through her performance on Wednesday night, when she had a hearty reception.”

There can be but little doubt of the success of the Strathlcvon meat experiment, for I sec by a recent Home paper that the frozen joints have actually found favour in the Servants Hall, and there could be no more convincing testimony to the excellence of the meat than the approval of Jearnos and Jemima Ann, whose taste in matters gastronomic is frequently more fastidious than that of their employers.

The matrimonial market would seem to be unusually brisk just now. Only last week I observed in the advertising columes of the “Press’’that a gentleman was in immediate want of “a firstclass young lady, with a view to matrimony,” while still more recently an advertisement came under my eye in an Oamaru paper, expressing the desire of “a young lady” to “correspond with a young gentleman ” also with a matrimonial view, and in “ strict confidence.” The latter advertisement is of course explained by the fact of this being leap year. QUILP.