The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-10-16
UTILIZING THRILL POWER.
New Enterprise to Charm Visitors to
Niagara Falls.
lNeW York Trihune

Shooting the chutes will give way to
a more ecstatic sport, If the wishes of
the FranchOt bill advocates are car
ried out. This bill, already passed by
the assembly, aims to incorporate the
Lower Bridge company and permit il
to build over the Whirlpool rapids at
Niagara Falls "a bridge which must be
at least twenty-five feet above the
level of the water. No other reStric-
ton has thus far been suggested,
which fact plainly proves that the
hackers of the enterprise are filled with
the high ambition to make the loop of
death and the aerial sOmersault seem
as harmless and dull as playing with
a rattle.
The water level at the Whirlpool
rapids being reckoned presumably from
the usual point, the new bridge may
be so constructed as to immerse the
roadway in the crests of the highest
waves, which seethe upward eternally
in that glorious gorge to the height of
about twenty-five feet. OF course just
the frothiest tips of the waves would
reach the bridge and mOisten the feet
of thrill-hunters. This SO-near-and
yet-so-far feature constitutes the
chief charm, and promises to make
fortune for the clever men who con-
ceived the FranchOt bill. Think of the
swarms of small boys who would steal
money from their mothers in order TO
travel to the wonderful bridge of near
death and, for a small admission fee,
walk boldly out to the middle of the
swaying strands Of rope "a rope bridge
would be cheaper and more exciting
than any other kind. there to sit down
and dangle their tOotsieS in the roar
ing, 1endish pillows that tirelessiy snap
upward at their (and the bridge COM
pany's) prey And then, what a con-
venlence for suicides! II is far more
idylic to leap into unobsructed green
water than to plunge over watery
precipice and encounter at the bottom
some very prosaic rocks. Melancholy
and water hypnotism alone would easily
pay the new company handsome divi-
dends.
A few hypersensitive assemblymen
protested against the scheme on the
ground that its realization would go
far toward destroying the natural
beauty of the Niagara gorge, bridge
over the whirlpool being blot on
Americas most enJhralling scene. These
protestants have a narrow conception
of what true beauty is; they do not
realize that the most beautiful thing in
the world is human bravery. What
is the dead grandeur of wild tangle
OF OTuludIy QElnkillS NdlCi III CoiliPol-
ison with the glorious sight of a score
of American citizens haunting the in
furiated demons of the liquid abyss on
the bridge at midnight? How insig
nifcant will appear twenty-five foot
pillows of the whirlpool when Mike"
Kelly from the Tonawanda lumber
yards lowers himself over the railing
Of the bridge. and. hanging by his toes
from the swaying, straining support,
sticks his carroty head into those bill
lows with a wild shrek of hooking
laughter? No, gentlemen of the asthe-
tic opposition, man being the most
glorious product of designing nature,
ais conduct on the new bridge will be
far more picturesque and entertaining
than all the surges that ever gnawed
at the heartstrings of pebbly shore and
living rock. BY all means let us util-
ize some of the enormous thrill power
Of Niagara which has been going to
waste for untold ages.