RISKS OF THE CIRCUS RING.

Shannon News, 20 November 1925, Page 1

RISKS OF THE CIRCUS RING.

DARING ACROBATIC STUNTS. **" VERY FEW ACCIDENTS Jack and Betty Riskit, two well. known trapeze artists, were badly injured when their apparatus crashed to the stage in full view of the audience at the Victoria Palace, London', re_ cently. • This news was prominently featur. ed in the papers. Why? because it was news l —something very unusual and remarkable. For it is a fact, not generally knowm, that acrobats and circus artistes have brought the technique of their daring acts to such an astonish, ingly high pitch' that, although at music-halls and circuses all over the country man and women performers are doing a hundred and one appar. f ently foolhardy things, days ■ weeks, i months affd years pass without a j single accident. j' ' In the old days circus performers did not bear such charmed lives. There were few performers in the popular travelling circuses who had not broken bones at one time or another. That was often enough bez cause the general of conduct among the circus folk was not so high as it is now. j Sanger's feicape. [ Lqrd George Sanger, for instance as a youngster, had a nasty fall from the sixteenth rung of a ladder supported on the hip .of Malabar, an enormous American juggler, balancer I and strong man. Malabar used'' to | wind up his act by elevatingia donkjoy strapped to the end of a - ladder. I But one night the ' donkey strayed, and ycung Sanger Was commandered to take its place. The boy began to climb the ladder But looking down as he neared the top, he saw Malabar swaying, his eyes half closed, fand a stupiu smile on his face. He- was drunk, and Sanger 1 was so alarmed that he slipped and fell. He might just as well have gone on, because Malabar- was drunk pretty well every night. --. Of course) wild animal acts are not in favour now, and the virtual elim. ination of this branch of the circus in England no doubt accounts for the rarity of any- "accident news" from the halls or circuses. Not that many wild beast tamers have been killed, but '-incidents"- were ndt-infrequent. ' The great* "Lion Kings" of the old days, Manchester Jack, Van Amburgh Crockett, and the 'great Macomo, all died in their beds. But, all the same they bore rears of some sanguinary 'encounters with their "pets." Macpmo was attacked several times.* Both he and Crockett separated fighting lions and tigers With only a riding-whip for weapon. The original* Sanger once rounded up. half.a-dozeii lions, which had got loose and killed a' groom,, with the aid merely of a switch and his voice. Macartliy, a famous wild beast King ■of. the 'sixties, first lost an arm, then he lost his life. He was killed dicing a performance at Bolton by a careful'of lions after a terrible fight which lasted for 20 minutes. But he ! asked ror trouble by. of interni>_ l brate habits, and insisting on turning his back on the beasts. Women wild beast tamers have been prohibited since the. frightfultragedy in which Helen' Blight lost her life. Two "Lion Queens," Miss Hilton and Miss Chapman, had appeared with considerable success in the cages. Miss Blight thought she could outshine them. She 4 found the heasts obeying her, did-not realise that they might turn. There was, no need to touch them with the whip and she was warned not to do so. But she found they jumped more smartly if they got a little stinging cut from" the whip, and in her desire to be acclaimed Ihe best Lion'Queen she kept this habit up. . One day at Greenwich she foolishly struck a tiger with her whip. The infuriated beast uttered a tremendous roar and sprang at her. The mighty jaws closed on the young woman's throat. She died a few moments after" they got her out of the. cage and no woman has .put the wild beasts through their paces since. Clowns and Death The most pathetic story in the his. tory of the circus is, perhaps, that of Prince's death at the Cirque d'Ete in Paris. Prince was. a popular young equestrian, recently married to v . a charming and pretty girl member of the troupe. He did a vaulting act 'with two hovses harnessed together. On e day one of the horses stumbled and fell on its knees, and Prince, thrown on his head, was instantly killed. ■ The audience did not realise just what had happened. They thought he was stunned. And before they had time to think the ring master had had poor Prince carried off, and rush'ed the troupe of clowns in their motley into the ring. That reassured the audience. They felt quite certain that nothing serious had happened. And whilst in the sawdust ring the clowns tumbled and cracked their jokes and the crowd roared with laughter, in the bare whitewashed dressing.room behind the scones a young bride was weeping over her dead man.