CROSSING NIAGARA FALLS ON A TIGHTROPE.

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 228, 27 December 1859, Page 2

CROSSING NIAGARA FALLS ON A TIGHTROPE.

Last month we published an account cf Mr. Blondin crossing the Niagara Falls on a tight rope: The New York Times contains the following communication vvhh respect to the same.

"Niagara, Friday, Aug. 26, 1859r "I have no objection even to a practical joke while it is kept within the bounds of decency, nor do I feel it "my duty io make myself a knight errant for the pur-., pose of' pricking «lfc£th^^bul>Bles^hicS 7 crafty speculators maythinkit wortlv their while to blow, or exploding all the hoaxes by which some needy character may try to turn his penny. It is of very little us© to save food from his folly, ancj what people like to believe I suppose., they .will believe in spite of reason and evidence | alike. Moreover, as a citizen of Niagara, I presume that I shall, in one way or another, be a gainer one of these days by the sudden influx of money into our town, which baa followed the splendid success"" of the great Blondin humbug. Nevertheless, the thing is getting so very absurd that I can't any longer refrain from speaking the truth about it. When : it comes tq. asserting that Blondin cooks his dinnej on a tight rope and feeds the passengers on the Maid of the Mist with omelette^ dropped like manna from the, sky, I must • speak out in meeting,' and say what none of the ten thousand dupes of our wonderful story can be expected in difference to ljuman fratility to be the first to make known—that for aught I know there is no ?ueh person in the world, or at least in Niagara,-as Mr. Blondin at all; that he as never crossed the falls on a tight rope, or a slack rope, or on any rope at all but the string pf a very longbow ; and that as the people of Niagara, Rochester, and' the western of New York have already made perhaps quite money enough out of t!>eif» .*jests jrosteriiy,' it is time that i^auhe, filing should be put a stqp!to before foolish. people elsewhere %iy be led i.nio serious, dagger J^y^ttemptifig to rival feats/ihat have never been performed. Since theimmorlal •* Moon hoax' there has been no-, thing so successful I suppose in the way of a vast quiz as the rope --walkinginception o{ a 'bright Ni^oafa ba^-.keejyer,* wilhs its c choc $ ' from jftoche'ater. . -^nd other places along our line of country. As I have not been away from' home during the whole summer I think lam a tolerable credible witness; and | must, therefore, assure you tha.t the whole of this wonderful seripsi of stories has grown, up qu'f of §' l)et made by a person well linown in this town that he c v d bring more people to Niagara in two weeks than I the falls had ever brought: here in as many months. How tW rope dancing dodge occurred to him I don't profess to know, but foe selected Blondin as the name of Ijis, hero, because there was a Blondin once in this, country with the Revels, a very good rope-dapper,, ijovv reared and living somewhere in Sa voy* who couid not of course hear of the story in time to contradict it. Anything fimnieV or more foolish than the faces of the crowds which have succeeded e^ch o'her dowa about the falls on each succeed-ng.d'il I an-* nouncecl iar the "feats" you never saw* and the hotels have reaped a golo'en harvest. But you will observes' th&t not a, single individual has ventured in any of the letters from, Niagara to's^y ti at he saw Blondin do any ol these things. Our local I editors and others, of course, enjoying the j «ke have joined in it, and a very good joke it has been certainly; but it seems :o me it ought to be regarded now as played out. The good people of our town haye had their fun out of you,, you must admit, and have made a sniig thing of it top in a pe-i cuni^ry way, But a joke, as 1 said before^ is ajoke, and has its bounds.—?" R. E. IV On the other hand three correspondents of tho Manchester {ExMnmer write to confirm the account of^Blondlin'stii>ht-rope feat across Niagara, wlneh has been recently stated to be a " hoax." Two of them have just, returned f otn America, where they had been eyewitnesses of the feat; and the third encloses % letter, from his son, who had been among the spectators. The following is a passage of the letter:—«. "Last Wednesday Margaret and I vven,t to the Falls to see Blondin vvalk across the ' Niagara river on a tight-rope, 140 feet above the water, which he did twice; the first time standing on his head over the very centre of the stream, hanijing on by his arms, lying on his back, &c, &c.; but the second time he carried a man across on his back, which was fearful to look at, as he had to let him off to stand on the rope, so as to gain a rest five separate times, and it took him half an hour to cross. There

were 40,000 ppople there. The distance vyalked was 1180 Feel. " ■