The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-08-31

1 1OuS expectation.
Ihen Victoria LIE Roy stepped forth
[ to go to her death. There was a smile
/ on her face as she seated herself on
! the trapeze bar. With her right hand
/ she grasped one of the ropes. Her left
4 arm she inserted into a leather loop,
fastened to the rope on that side.
Recently she had sprained her wrist
I 1t was still too weak to stand a heavy
/ strain and the loop was there to assist
| her.
The rope Of the parachute hung down
/ within easy reach. All was ready.
There was nothing to indicate the trag-
/ edy which was about to follow.
The woman sat with her legs crossed
/ beneath the bar, holding tightly to the
| ropes. She gave her husband one
| swift, earnest look and then the sig
nal.
In an instant the ropes were cut and
the balloon shot high into the air to
the music of thousand cheers, like a
| frightened bird fleeing from the hands
of its captor.
In another instant a terrible thing
had happened. The upturned eyes of
the thousands below saw without COM
pretending the cause, the rope to the
parachute slip from the Woman's grasp.
They heard an awful scream of an
guish, and then they saw the form of
the woman dangling from the trapeze
bar by her left arm held in the loop.
A second later and the great closed
parachute shot back to earth, released
from its fastenings in some mysterious
way.
A groan of horror ran through the
/ crowd. Something terrible had hap
pened, they knew, but they did not then
realize the full portent Of that para
| chute's fall.
It meant death to the poor woman,
! who was dangling from her injured
| wrist and shooting higher and higher
! into the heavens. They could see her
| struggling as though to free herself,
and then, as she sailed further and fur
/ ther away, grow still; but even then it
was not all plain to them.
| There was only one man in that vast
/ thrOng that realized what it meant.
/ This was Hibbard.
/ To him it was all plain, and it crush
/ ed him. For an instant he was dumb,
! his face the most abjectly miserable
/ that ever a man looked on. He saw
| his wife going to her death in the
! clouds, doomed to be dashed to pieces
/ on the very earth on which he stood,
| and he could do nothing.
Few heard his pitiful cry. Few saw
! him as he fed to the little tent to one
| side.
The eyes of the crowd were fastened
! high UP in the clouds on the balloon
! and it's victim, growing ever DINNER
J and smaller in the distance.
I The poor husband was insane. He
/ wept, he cursed. he tore at his throat
! and rolled in agony on the grOund.He
| thought he could hear the voice of his
/ wife calling him to save her, but he
could not look.
! In his despair he seized a revolver to
! end his own life but one of his assistants
! who had followed him Wrested it from
| his grasp. They struggled there in
/ the tent together, while outside the
| horror stricken crowd still gazed at the
/ Heeting figure.
Only now was the full realization of
/ dread calamity come upon them. Men
/ wept and wFung their hands in their
| impotency. Women fell senseless to
/ the ground. The crowd surged back
| and forth like a mad mob in its excite
ment
/ A human being was going to die and
/ they could not help her. The day of
| pleasure was changed to a day of
/ doom.
And still on and on sped the balloon
/ and the woman They were only two
| tiny black spots now. far off in the dis
/ tance where here and there a heecy
/ cloud sailed by in idle ease and the
rare, thin air blew cold on the wo-
mans body.
| BY and by it seemed an age to the
| loOkers-on,, the inevitable end came.
/ Almost four terrible minutes had pass
ed since the balloon left the earth and
| the wOman's strength had failed her.
/ She must have given up in despair
! and lOosened her grasp, for soon the
! two tiny specks began to separate.
The crowd knew what it meant now.
] The woman was falling and they
| shrieked in paroKysms of grief and ter
ror.
Down. down, she came like an arrow.
/ growing larger every instant. Finally
| She whirIed over and spun over and
| over again in the mad dash to death.
/ Few saw her strike. They closed their
/ eyes. DuL TO InGlI ears came the S1ChGI4-
1 ing crash that told them OF the end
I She had landed on top of a big elm
| tree and torn her way through its
I branches to the ground, a mass of un-
| recognizable blood, flesh and bones.
| Hibbard heard the sound and tear
/ ing away from his friends hurried to
| the spot He was among the first to
| reach the body. His grief was pitiful
| and hundreds turned away, too sick to
| see it.
charge of by Undertaken George W.
Fisher of St. Louis, who happened to
| be on the grounds. It was removed to
! Clayton, where Coroner Caster held an
| INQUEST. Later it was brought to St.
| Louis and buried here this morning.
The most reasonable explanation Of
/ fered as to the cause of the accident is
/ that the woman was jerlzed from her
/ seat by the sudden fight of the balloon
| In the fall she must have borne heavily
on the parachute rope, made to break
! and release this instrument by the ap-
| plication Of the aeronaut's weight.
| The accidental imposition of the
| weight probably severed the rope and
| let fall the only means of escape At
| ter that it was only a question of how
| far she would fall.
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