STILL VERY MUCH ALIVE.

Shannon News, 18 December 1925, Page 2

STILL VERY MUCH ALIVE.

"WHY HE DID HIS TRICK. Visitors to Niagara are always toH of the wonderful performance of a man who went over the falls in a barrel and lived to tell tho tula. His name was "Bobbie" Leach. An Auckland'er (Mr. P. E. Suttle) recalled this adventure the other day when speaking of a visit he paid to the Niagara Falls' on October 13th. Leach, ho said, was still very much alive. He heard the narrative of Leach's adventures, as everyone else heard it, and supplied the sequel from his own experiences. "While journeying across the Rockies by train I went into the smoking compartment," relates Mr. Buttle. "Another man was also smoking there, and we talked together for a while. Presently he introduced himself to me as Bobbie Leach. H'o was a short, thick-set man, with a strong spark of adventure. "Why did you do such a mad thing?" I asked him. "I thought it might be a way to make money quickly -and honestly," returned Leach, with the greatest frankness. Leach was travelling with his wife and daughter to Australia. He passed through Auckland by the Niagara on November 9th. when' the names of Mr. and Mrs. R. Leach and Miss P. Loach appeared in the liner's passenger list. To bear out Leach's adventurous nature, it is said of him that on one occasion he went up .1 J.OOOft by balloon and dived from it in a parachute; and that he had quite a number of experiences in negotiating the Niagara rapids and the whirlpool." lie was introduce! to a number of Auckl.ind'ers during his brief call here (says the Star) as ry.i survivor of .the barrel adventure, which he accomplished in forty mirntes.