Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1882-02-22
NO. 45.
Circus Apparatus and Accidents.

The most important business, AFTER the
tents are up, is the formation of the ring"
and the setting up ofthe gvmnsstic machinery
for the performances Of the acrobats.
The ring" is generally little more than
forty feet in diameter, and it looks like .
rude enough affair, but its preparation calls
for both care and skill. The ground for il is
leveled with nicely. The barrier a circular
mound of earth of about one hundred and
twenty-five feet inside circumference. Is
raised TO height of somewhat over twenty
inches on its inner face. 1t must be thick,
firm and strong, to bear the hard blows of q
horses feet or the sudden leaning upon it OF
an elephant. Ii must, therefore, be banked,
and pounded with sledge- hammers. until no
strain to which it can be subjected will break
il down, and il must retain no looseness nor
unevenness, to trip horse or endanger the
life of rider. Ii is the work of a few hours
only. but there is man busy upon almost
every square yard of it while il is rising.
As to the machinery for the acrobsts.
simple as is the appearance of the uprights
and cross bars, they must be set up with
especial care, SO as to leave no possibility Of
their breaking down. The performer using
them must se able toe trust his appliances
absolutely. or he could never have the nerve
and confidence TO delight the crowd at the
risk of his neck. All his feats of skill and
daring, moreover, have relation to the exact
distances at hich he has practiced them. and
there must be no variation from these precise
measurements in the daily adjustment Of his
machinery. He, or she, AS the case may be,
is sure enough 10 meet with what are called
accidents" When great show" recently
came To the city of Brooklyn, a family group
of three persons sat down together in the
breskfast-ten.. They were acrohats of un-
surpassed agility and skill A sad-faced
woman, young man of middle size, n girl just
entering her teens There had been four ofthem
prior to a recent performance, hut the "star,"
an older girl. the most daring of them all, had
missed her motion in feat of uncommon
peril, and had fallen upon the receiving net.
"She was but slightly injured" all were told
who cared or thought TO ask. but the little
group at the table knew that she was dying.
They performed their parts that day as
skillfully as ever, though with much more
weight than usual to carry, but when the
evening evening exhibition was over there
were, indeed, but three Of them. The fourth
had gone forever.
Such an accident may come to the best
trained and most experienced performer. and
vet tits n mistake to suppose that acrobats are
necessarily a short lived race. The constant
exercise, the enforced temperance, the out-of-
doors life amount in fact, TO a careful OBJ
servance of well-known laws of health. II n
professional athlete escapes the more serious
disasters which are continually possible TO
to him, it is his own fault il he does not
remain for wears man of comfortable body.
His worst perls to not come to him in the
''ring," but during the long months when he
is unemployed. and when he has no immedi-
ate and pressing need for careful training.
For, in this interval he is in danger of relax
ing his habits of careful living, and very
little indulgence will put out of order
that wonderful machine, his body--on the
perfect condition of which depends his power
to do the feats required of him From Men
and -Animoi Shons," bU w. q. Stoddord, IN
March 81. N,cho