IMPROVED APPARATUS APPLIED TO GYMNASTIC AND THEATRICAL PER- FORMANCES.
Year: 1875

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Walter Pfeffer Dando, of 128, Shepherdess Walk,
City Road, in the County of Middlesex, for the Invention of
" IMPROVED APPARATUS APPLIED TO GYMNASTIC AND THEATRICAL PER-
FORMANCES.
"
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Walter Pfeffer
Dando at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his
Petition, on the 1st September 1875.
I, WALTER PFEFFER DANDO, of 128, Shepherdess Walk, City Road,
in the County of Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVED APPARATUS APPLIED TO GYMNASTIC AND THEATRICAL
PERFORMANCES," to be as follows:-
My Invention consists of two parts, first, a mechanical combination
for giving a performer a sudden impetus to a considerable height, either

page_text: in a vertical or oblique direction or to aid in the personification of a
monkey, for instance, jumping from tree to tree, or from a considerable
height; the second, a novel arrangement and combination of trees or
bars for the performer to catch on having obtained the impetus from
first part of my Invention.
The first part of my Invention consists of a number of india-rubber
springs permanently fixed to a disc by screws or their equivalents round
its lateral edges, the disk running on two guiding wires, the springs
when at tension being hooked to a permanent disk furnished with hooks
to recurve the springs, the disk being made permanent to a bracket or its
equivalent. The moveable disk is furnished with a wire, which is
attached by a ring or hook to a roller turning in brackets or suspended
in bearings by wires; the roller has two sizes in its diameter, the wire
(from moveable disk) being attached to the smaller, and wound round as
far as the tension of springs will allow. Over the second size of roller
is attached a wire rope, which descends to the stage or platform from
which the performer is about to leap. The performer attaches himself
to the wire by passing a ring or hook over an iron eye fastened to an
arrangement of waistcoat. The performer having attached himself to
the wire a bolt that secures the roller at the most convenient point is
drawn, and the springs (which have been previously distended and
hooked on to the permanent disk) give the roller sufficient rotation to
cause the performer to attain the desired height. A small india-rubber
wheel running on a bracket close to the large size of roller stops the
performer from falling after attaining the desired height by jamming
between the roller and bracket, thus preventing the roller turning the
reverse way to that caused by the springs. For descending the wire at
end of moveable disk is again attached to small part of roller and the
stop drawn, the fall being broken by the springs being attached to small
part of roller, the number of springs in this case being less than for
making the ascent, and regulated according to weight of performer.
The apparatus is made perfectly portable, being all fixed to a platform
by bolts, and suspended by wires from the roof of the building, or in
the event of sufficient space can be fixed in its entirety to the roof itself.
The second part consists of an arrangement of bars and wires placed
in the necessary places and positions for the performer to catch on
having attained the impetus from first part of my Invention.

page_text: SPECIFICATION filed in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters
Patent, and of an Order of the Lord Chancellor, by the said
Walter Pfeffer Dando in the Great Scal Patent Office on the
28th March 1876.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WALTER
PFEFFER DANDO, of 128, Shepherdess Walk, City Road, in the County
of Middlesex, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twenty-seventh day of September, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-five, in the.
thirty-ninth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and suc-
cessors, give and grant unto me, the said Walter Pfeffer Dando,
Her special licence that I, the said Walter Pfeffer Dando, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said
Walter Pfeffer Dando, my executors, administrators, and assigns,
should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and
at all times thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and
lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United King-
dom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of
Man, an Invention for "IMPROVED APPARATUS APPLIED TO GYMNASTIC AND
THEATRICAL PERFORMANCES," upon the condition (amongst others) that I,
the said Walter Pfeffer Dando, my executors or administrators, by
an instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and
seals, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said
Invention, and in what manner the same was to be performed, and
cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office on or before
the 28th day of March One thousand eight hundred and seventy-six.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Walter Pfeffer Dando, do
hereby declare the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner
the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement, reference being had to the two
accompanying Sheets of Drawings, and to the letters and figures marked.
thereon, that is to say :-
My Invention relates, 1st., to improvements in apparatus of the kind
for which Letters Patent were granted to George Oliver, dated May
6th 1871, No. 1234, and September 25th 1875, No. 3366.
The

page_text: apparatus is used in gymnastic and theatrical performances for lifting
a performer suddenly and with considerable velocity to a height, and
for sustaining the performer in mid air after being so lifted to
enable him to personify a bird or other character. The sudden manner
in which the performer is raised and the concealment of the apparatus
used give the movement the appearance of an extraordinary jump per-
formed by an exertion on the part of the performer, and I shall therefore,
for the sake of brevity, refer hereafter to the lifting of the performer as
a "jump," and to the apparatus as a jumping apparatus.
The Invention relates, 2ndly, to improvements adapted to gymnastic
apparatus of the trapèze class, which may be used in connection with
the before-mentioned "jumping" apparatus or not, as desired.
In order that my Invention may be clearly understood I have illus-
trated it in the annexed Drawings, in which Figure 1 is a side elevation,
and Figure 2 a plan of the improved "jumping" appartus; Figure 3.
is a transverse section of part thereof; Figures 4, 5, and 6 are elevations
of three different modifications of the same apparatus.
The onc
a, a, are a number of india-rubber springs (of the kind known as
accumulator springs), whose ends are connected to two dises b, c, by
hooks or other fastenings around the edges of the discs, a few
only of the springs being shown, to avoid confusion.
disc is securely fixed to a strong standard d rising from the plat-
form e on which the apparatus is supported, and the other disc c is
fitted to slide along horizontal guide rods f fixed at the rear end to
standard d, and bent down and fixed to the platform e at the front
end. The platform e may be hung or otherwise supported by any
suitable means beneath the roof of the stage. The first improvement
in this apparatus consists in the combination with the spring apparatus
above referred to, and the wire by which the performer is raised of gear
for multiplying the contractile effect of the springs, whereby the same or
a greater height of "jump" is obtained with much shorter springs, the
latter being of course proportionally stronger or more numerous. The
apparatus thus occupies much less space, and may be used in places.
where long springs would be inadmissible.
lavina au atan Caw unke

page_text: In Figures 1 and 2 the multiplying gear consists of a drum g, h, of
two diameters mounted to rotate in bearings in standards i. Upon the
smaller party is wound a strap k connected at one end to a swivel cyo
attached to disc c, and at the other end is hooked on to a pin or catch
fixed in the periphery of the drum. One end of the wire rope is made
fast to the larger part of the drum, upon which the wire is wound as
the drum is rotated by the contraction of the springs a unwinding the
strap i from the small part of the drum. The performer wears a sort of
harness by which he is attached (as described in the first Patent of
George Oliver, before mentioned) to the other end of wire 7 descending to
the stage or platform from which the performer is about to "jump."
The springs are shown distended in Figure 1, in which position they are
retained by a bolt m mounted in a standard n, and taking into a corre-
sponding hole in the periphery of the larger part of the drum. The
springs may be distended all at once by means of a winch handle o fixed
to a pinion p, which gears with a ring of teeth q on the drum h.
The device by which the performer is sustained and enabled to execute
feats or go through a performance in the air consists of an india-rubber
roller mounted in a forked lever pivotted to the standard n by pins on
the latter received in long slots in the arms of the lever, as shown, so as
to allow the roller sufficient freedom. This roller rests upon the
periphery of drum h, and during the "jump," when the drum is
turning in the direction of the arrow, it has no effect, but immediately
the drum commences to turn in the reverse direction the roller > runs
down, and becomes jammed between the drum h and the standard n,
effectually preventing the unwinding of the rope from the drum.
Figure 4 shows the drum only, the spring apparatus being supposed to
be located at a distance therefrom at one side or clsewhere.
Figure 5 shows the springs arranged vertically. As all the parts are
the same as before (except that in Figure 5 no guide rods d are used,
the discs being merely connected by a rope) no further description is
required.
In Figure 6 a different kind of multiplying gear is used. Instead of
using a drum of different diameters a pulley s is used, round which the
wire passes, and is made fast by one end to standard n, the wire also
passing over a pulley t. The pulley & is mounted in a frame u fixed to
the moveable disc b. The springs are retained in the distended position

page_text: by a bolt connecting the end of frame n to the standard n; on releasing
this bolt the disc is drawn back by the contraction of the springs to
the position shown in dotted lines, the pulleys carrying with it the
bight of the rope 2, whereby the performer is raised a height equal to
twice the distance moved by the disc b. It is obvious that this height
may be multiplied to any required extent by a further system of pulleys
or tackle, as will be readily understood.
Figure 7 shows the improvements in connection with trapèzes; they
consist in means whereby a trapèze bar may be made a fixture to be
used as a horizontal bar, and released when required to form a trapèze
by which the performer swings to another position, where the trapèze
bar again becomes fixed. A is the end of the trapèze bar; B is one of
the ropes by which it swings suspended from a bracket C, which is sup-
ported by wire ropes D, E, stretched horizontally and vertically there-
from from one side to the other. The other rope of the trapèze is
similarly suspended, and the two horizontal ropes or stays D are parallel;
F is an attachment introduced in the length of the ropes D, as shown,
by which the trapèze bar is supported as a fixed horizontal bar. It
consists of a frame carrying a bolt G in staples H, said bolt passing
through an eye formed on the end of the trapèze bar, which comes up
through an opening in the frame of the attachment, as shown. The
bolt G is withdrawn when desired by a person at a distance by means of
a line I attached thereto. K is a ring encircling the trapèze rope B
and one of the horizontal stay ropes D' upon which the ring runs, being
pulled along by a rope to lift up the trapèze as it swings across from one
side to the other, and assist the performer, and enable him to swing to
and remain at a position at the same height as the point from which he
swung. Both ropes of the trapèze are similarly operated.
Having described the nature of my Invention, and the manner of
performing the same, I declare that what I claim as the Invention to
be protected by the herein-before in part recited Letters Patent is,―
1st. The combination with the spring apparatus and the wire for
lifting the performer of multiplying gear consisting either of the
double drum g, h, arranged and applied, and operating substantially as
described and shown in Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or a system of pulleys as
described in reference to Figure 6.
2nd. In the apparatus shown in Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, the india-rubber

page_text: roller or stop applied and operating in connection with the drum g, h,
substantially as and for the purpose specified.
3rd. The attachments for fixing and readily releasing a trapèze bar,
substantially as and for the purpose shown and described.
4th. The combination with a trapèze of the running ring K sub-
stantially as and for the purpose set forth.
In witness whereof, I, the said Walter Pfeffer Dando, have here-
unto set my hand and scal, this Twenty-seventh day of March,
in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-
six.
WALTER PFEFFER DANDO. (L.S.)