A SHOCKING DEATH.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3444, 8 January 1880, Page 3

A SHOCKING DEATH.

One of the most intrepid wild-beast tamers in Europe, Karolyi, a magyar of colossal stature and extraordinary physical strength, has recently (says a Home paper) fallen a victim to a dread contingency of his perilous profession. He was performing, before a crowded audience in Madrid the other day, one of his most sensational feats, which consisted in allowing a huge boa constrictor, over twenty feet in lengthy to enfold his body in its tremendous coils, when suddenly a piercing cry escaped him, which was greeted by the public ] with a round of applause, under the ! supposition that its utterance con- , stitnted a part of the performance. It proved, however to be the outcome of a strong man's death-agony. The gigantic snake had tightened its coils, and crushed poor Karolyi's life out of him with one terrible squeeze. As his head fell back and his eyes became fixed in a glassy stare, the plaudits died away and were succeeded by the still* ness of utter consideration. The snake and its lifeless victim swayed for a second or two and toppled over on the boards of the stage; but the boa did not in the least lelax his grip upon the corpse, which remained for more than an hour imprisoned in hideous thraldom, nobody daring to approach the lithe monster, of whose powers such appalling proof had been given. At length it occurred to one of Karolyi's attendants to place a bowl of milk in a cage within sight of the mighty gerpent, which slowly unwound itself from the dead body and glided into its den, irresistibly tempted thereto by its favorite dainty. A post mortem examination of the unfortunate athlete's remains discovered no fewer than eighty-seven fractures of his bones, effected by the constriction of the serpent's coils. His death must have been almost instantaneous as the spine was disarticulated in several places. ' ____ , .