Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1882-03-16
gNisfeIIauepns &eadiua.
CIRCUS APPARATUS AND ACCIDENTS.

The most important business, after the tents
are up, is the formation of the "ring" and the
setting up the gymnastic 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 it's preparation calls for
both care and skill. The ground for it is
levelled 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 it's inner face. It must be thick, firm, and
strong, to bear the hard blows Of horse's
feet or the sudden leaning OH of all elephant
1t must, therefore, he banked, and pounded
with sledge hammers, until no strain to which
it can he subjected will break it down, and it
must retain no looseness or uneyenness, to
trip a horse or endanger the life of the rider.
1t is the work of a few hours only, but there
is man busy on almost every square yard or
it while it is rising. -
AS to the machinery for the acrobats, simple
as is the appearance of the uprigllts and cross
bars, they must be set mp with especial care,
so as to leave no possibility of their breaking
down. The performer using them must be
able to trust his appliances absolutely, or he
could never have the courage to delight a
crowd at the risk of his neck. His feats OF
Skill dllu udllllk, ulUlcONCl. l"NO ASi'ViOh w
the exact distances at which he has practiced
them. and there must be no variation from
these precise measurements in the daily ad-
justment of his machinery. He, or she, as
the case may be, is sure to meet with what are
called ssaccidents. When "great show"
recently came to the city of Brooklyn, family
group of three persons sat down together IN
the breakfast-tent. They were acrobats of
unsurpassed agility and skill. A sad-faced
woman, a young man of middle size, girl
Just stentering her teens. There had been four
of them prior to recent performance, but the
''star," an older girl, the most daring of them
all, had 'smissed her notion in feat of un-
common peril, and had fallen upon the recelv-
ing net. "She was but slightly injured" all
were told who cared OF thought to ask, but the
little group at the table knew that she was dy-
ing. They performed their parts that day as
weight than usual to carry, but when the
evening exhibition was over there were, i'll
deed, but three Of them. The fourth had gone
forever. ..-..E'.- .....
Such al. "accident'' may come to the best
trained and most experienced performer, and
yet it is mistake to suppose that acrobats are
necessarily short lived race. The constant
exercise, the enforced temperance, the out
| of doors life, amount in fact, to careful OBJ
servance of well known laws of health. If a
professional athlete escapes the more serious
disasters which are continually possible to him,
it is his own fault if he does not remain for
many years man of comfortable body.
His worst perils do not come to him in the
'sring," but during the long months when he
is necessarily unemployed, and when ne has
no immediate and pressing need for careful
| training. For in this interval, he is in danger
of relaxing his habits Of careful living, and a
very little over indulgence will put out of Or
der that wonderful machine-his body-on
the perfect condition of which depends his
power to do the feats required of him.