Evening star., 1934-07-01

hole or an attractive place to exter-
inmate oneself painlessly. Neverthe-
less police this Summer keeping stricter
vigil than ever before in an effort to prevent
stuntsters and would-be suicides from defylng
the worlds most famous falls.
The thunder and raging foam of the water
falls and the municipal law against jumping
over Niagara or swimming any of the rapids
above or below the cataracts didn't prevent
nearly two-score persons in the last three years
from dropping their hats and coats and lugu-
briouS notes al the railings above the water
falls before making their leaps into oblivion.
Nor were dozens of persons and hu ldreds
of dumb animals kept from attempting all
sorts of freak feats by the perilous brink where
every hour a hundred million tons OF water
lunge over in the mad rush to Lake Ontario
THE stuntsters and the suicides, like the honey
| mooners have answered the beck of the
romantic river in the Summertime when the
roar travels for nearly three miles in and
around the cataracts and when the spray rises
straight toward the skies like geyser.
Indians of the Niagara frontier decades ago
used to believe in the Summertime magic OF
the river To this day. in the reservations of
the Six Nations, it is told how the most beau
tiful Indian maiden was sent in a canoe over
the Horseshoe Falls as sacrifice to the river
god
1t is related that the daughter of the head
chief of the Iroquois was selected for the sacri-
flee one Summer, and just as her canoe was
last seen in the spray of the cataract, her In
dian lover set out grimly in canoe, follow
ing her to her fate. Imaginative spectators
still the spirit of the Indian maiden In
the Summer spray.
In this season of the year the worst acci-
dents have occurred and the most hair-raising
feats have been performed and the largest
number of suicides have been committed.
-Four persons gliding across the whirlpool
rapids mile below the Falls last Summer sus-
pended above the churning waters in a little
steel aero-car, were attracted by strange
sight in the maelStrom. They saw an object
bobbing up and down in the eddieS. Suddenly
they saw it swing out with and legs.
vanishing hundred times, only to reappear
more animated.
They traced the midge in its wild course to
the Canadian shore. When 18-year- old Will
liam Kondrath was fished out of the whirlpool
on the Canadian bank below the aero-car sta
ton, he was informed that he was the first
person who swan the whirlpool rapids.
Kondrath crossed the bridge to the American
shore, where two policemen promptly arrested
him on charges Of vagrancy and swimming the
rapids against the law.
william (Red) HILL the Niagara riverman,
who has spent much of his life fishing out
bodies and fragments of clothing of the rivers
victims, last Summer found the whirlpool ire
sistible himself He tried navigating the rapids
three times, landing on the shore from which
he had set out each time-and lucky to get
back alive
In his fourth attempt last Julys he set out in
an oaken barrel, painted red white and blue.
The barrel with its human cargo 10ated directly
to the center of the river and for four mad
hours whired about in fandango that wilted
the onookers and sent the rivermans son, Red
Hill, jr., scurrying along the shore in a frantic
effort to aid his father.
CUDDENLY the barrel leaped through the
- air like giant salmon and bounced into
. smaller eddy which bore it slowly toward
the shore