The champion. (Arcadia, Fla.) 1895-1911, 1908-08-27
PECULIAR ACCIDENTS.
The "lrony Of Life" illustrated In
Stories of Falls,

0toFiob OF Faho,
The "irony Of life" was striklngly
illustrated recently In the news OF a
rustic who slipped from a six barred
gate and broke his neck and Of an
italian aeronaut who fell 1000 feet
with his collapsed balloon with no
worse result than spralned ankle.
A Frenchwoman, Nine. MoreL and
her daughter, while climbing In the
Alps, near Zermatt fell distance of
1,200 feet, not much less than quar-
ter of a mile, and, although the mother
was killed on the spot her daughter
escaped with a few bruises. Mr.
Whymper, the famous mountaineer,
had similarly miraculous deliverance
from what seemed to be certain death
when scaling the Matterhorn. Losing
his footing, he fell from rock to rock
to the bottom Of precipitous gully,
100 yards In depth, only to recover his
feet with no worse damage than a
badly cut head. And M. Parville, O
French writer, tells the story Of an
East Indian living In the island Of
Oghin who fell over precipice 1000
feet deep with no more serious con-
sequence than good shaking, his fall
being broken by the dense vegetation
which grew at the foot Of the cliff.
While climbing waterworks tower
240 feet high In Chicago steeple-
jack dislodged loose stone and was
precipitated to the ground from a
height OF 175 feet fortunately strik-
ing telegraph wires forty feet above
the street and thus breaking his fall
The spectators gasped with horror as
they saw the man drop swiftly to de-
struction. A rush was made to pick
up his shattered remains only to dis
cover that he was practically I'M
harmed. Not bone was broken, and
week later he was walking about as
II nothing had happened.
More remarkable and indeed al
most incredible was the experience of
Charles Woolcot when he was making
a parachute descent in Venezuela. At
height of 5000 feet Woolcot flung
himself of his balloon into space
when, to the horror Of the thousands
of onlookers, the parachute failed to
open. The man dropped like stone
with terrible speed UNTIL when about
200 feet from the earth, the parachute
few open and at once collapsed, He
was dashed to the ground, his right
thigh and hip were broken, both ankles
and knees were badly crushed, and his
spinal column was dlslocated, and yet,
after year spent In hospital Woolcot
was restored to soundness of limb aft
er surely the most terrible adventure
Of which any man has lived to toll the
story.
But II Is In the history Of ballooning
that one encounters the most remark
able cases Of sensational drops from
the clouds. When Mr.. Wise, famous
aeronaut of the early nineteenth cen
fury. was once making an ascent his
balloon exploded at an altitude of 49,
900 feet and began to drop swiftly to
the earth. more than couple Of
miles below. 1.-THE descent at first was
rapid" Mr.. Wise writes. "and accom-
panied by a fearful moaning noise
caused by air rushing through the net
work and the gas escaping from above
In another moment felt "A slight shock.
and, looking up to see what caused IT.,
| discovered that the balloon was cant
ing over, being nicely doubled IN, the
lower half into the upper" .
The balloon~sr., In fact, formed It.
self iR.o a parachute and, oscillating
wildly, continued its descent until 1t
struck the earth violently, throwing
the aeronaut ten yards out Of the car.
"The car had turned bottom upward.
and there stood" says Mr.. Wise.
"congratulating myself and the per-
splratlon rolling down my forehead in
profusion."-St Louis Post Dispatch.