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A VICTIM OF THE TRAPEZE.The .Mishap That Befell a Young WomanWho Made a Projectile of Herself.London Letter la New York Tribune.There may be seen at the aquarium in Westminster, a good-looking and a well-built young woman, whose real name is probably Jenkins or Thompson, but who is known to the public as Zmo. She is a professional gymnast or acrobat, and some tsn days ago she had the ill-luck to meet with an accident of a peculiar kind, which led to not a little discussion both as to this particular mishap and as to the propriety of allowing public exhibitions of women who do dangerous feats. Zse is the successor to another young woman named Zazel, whose pride it was to be shot out of a cannon. As the public after a while wearied of Zazel and her cannon the managers who make merchandise of her body, devised what they called a catapult—a machine which no longer appeals to the imagination by.burning gunpowder (which is by no means the propelling force,) but makes up for ibis by adding a new and obvious ri3k to the life and limb of the performer. The catapult is simply a platform of a size to hold a human body. Rubber springs are concealed beneath and at one end is a hinge on which the platform makes a partial revolution. I decribe the thiDg as I have seen it; complications may exist, but they can’t much effect the principle. The force of the spring, I was told, had been calculated to a fraction; it wa9 far safer than the flying trapeze or other contrivances where a momentary failure of the nerve or presence of mind of the gymnast would be fatal.On this platform, raised some twenty feet above the floor, Zaeo places herself, lying on her back at full length. When she has adjusted her body to her liking, with a number of preparatory bitches and undulations, she gives the word to her assistant by her side and he pulls a lever. The springs beneath thrust the platform and its human freight suddenly upward, as if about to describe a complete circle. The human part of the machine, not being in any way attached to the rest of it, does, in fact, describe a complete circle, and something more. The momentum and direction imparted to the body by the upward thrust are sufficient to cause it to perform a somersault in the air during its progress forward, and the body is expected to fall flatluto a net about fifty feet from its starting point, and some ten feet lower than the catapult. When I saw this exploit everything worked smoothly, and the female missile was accurately projected into the net. But. it happened the other afternoon, accurate calculations to the contrary notwithstanding, that the missile was fluDg through the net and down ten feet on to the floor. The good-looking young woman who a moment before had been smiling at the spectators was a heap of quivering and apparently. Jifeless flesh and broken 'bones. As it turned out, no bones were broken and the life had not gone out of the flesh. With a touching consideratenees toward the public the manager shortly after-wards placarded a medical certificate to the effect that as Zaeo was suffering from a slight con-cuaion she would not be able to appear at that evening’s performance.A week later her reappearance was advertised. Some people, who have no fancy for seeing cruelty and risk of a woman’s life turned to a showman’s profit, wrote to the papers protesting. The showman replied in a letter which is a masterpiece of its kind. He duly expressed his regret at the “accident,” declared the accounts of it exaggerated and gave an account of his own in these words: “On Saturday, January 31, Z03), in the concluding feat, slipped through the net, but broke her fall of about eight feet to the floor by ctcb-ingjthe meshes of the net in her descent.” Nothing could have been more satisfactory than this, but unluckily a fresh letter appears this morning, the writer of which tells us he was standing wthin three yards of where this poor girl fell. He helped to pick her up and carry her to the stage; and he has most distinctly to state that she did not catch in the net in hei decent; that she was flung through as if the net had been composed of thread, and that when picked up she was insensible, only showing that she was alive by feebly moaning. He adds that had she been thrown two yards further she would have been dashed against the girders of the gallery; had she fallen one yard short she would have alighted on the spiked barriers that surround the reserved seats.This is not the first accident of this kind: not the first that has happened to Ztco herself. It is not long since that she was performing at the Alexandra palace on a similar, or, perhaps, the same machine. The accurate calculations did not prevent her from being cut about the Head by some part of the apparatus as she took her flight, and as she landed bleeding and senseless, the net however not giving away on that occasion. The writer above quoted adds that on the day of the last accident, and immediately after it occurred he overheard an employe of the aquarium say to one of the orchestra, who with callous insensibility to his employers interests, had remarked that it was time such exhibitions were put a stop to. “Yes, indeed, you may say so; and if you had seen the shaves I have dozens of times, you would say it wasmurder allowing them to continue.” -Take a Paper.Nothing presents a sadder commentary upon the present condition of society than the large number of families, both in town and the country, but more especially in the latter, that subscribe to no paper of any kind. Hun*
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The Northern Pacific Farmer
Wadena, Minnesota, US
Thu, Apr 08, 1880
Page 7
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Anonymous
GB 11 Jun 2022
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