Swansea and Glamorgan Herald, and South Wales Free Press. — 1861-06-26 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

BAD EMINENCE. (From Me 'Examinee). The mountebank at the Crystal Palace is now praised and paid for his foolhardiness in making moderate skill as a tight-rope walker attractive by performing his trick. at peril of life instead of limb. Should he fall we shall have everybody wise after the fact, and loud in outcry against the impropriety of such exhibitions. Meanwhile this American, one of whose assistants has already bad a fatal fall, is, by his success in winning public applause, stimulating others of the craft to an exaggeration of their rashness. There is a "female Blendin" somewhere, advertising to go as high on a wire as the male lilondin trusts himself upon a cable. Whoever will be wise before the fact may as well act upon the understanding that those necks are risked because there aro thousands of people who will pay to see thorn risked. Law in England forbids suicide to the wretched, but cannot forbid a trade on the toss-up for life. It is for the public to withdraw itself front all encouragement of such a venture. If Mr. Blondin does not like us to say this in the interests of public morals, lot him be content that we also say it in the interests of "the manly art" of rope-dancing. For the art of rope-dancing evidently sinks in proportion to this elevation of the rope. Did the famous Dutchwoman, or any of the meanest artists of Bartholomew fair, claim praise for walking on a cable seven inches in circumference, or expect credit for balancing a cooking apparatus when there was a cross-pole at the bottom of it, disguised as a broom, that with the help of a couple of thin side ropes gave the whole machine upon which it rested, a broad triangle to stand upon? Would they over have grooved the wheel of a wheel-barrow, or relied so much as Blondin does upon the length and weight of a balancing pole? We recommend reduction of the cable to the usual dimensions of a rope, lowering of the rope to a keight from which it would not be death to fall, and a considerable elevation of the art displayed upon it. When rope-dancing was in its classical age, a summersault on the rope was not like Blondin's, a slow lying down in one way followed by a slow getting up in another, but a real sandhopper's leap in the air ; the artist bounded over high cress ropes stretched in her way, or showed the perfeotion of his skill by discarding not only the pole, but the use of the arms for balance, when he walked along the rope with strides of the utmost length while playing a tune on the fiddle held over his head. Mr. Blondin's art as a rope-dancer, although very pretentious, seems to tie really below that of the mountebanks of English fairs, when fairs were flourishing. It depends for its attraction only on the risk encountered. And low art of its sort passes for high art, because the undertaker tempts tho public with an offer that he has no right to make t—namely, to kill himself if he cannot do what, if there were no risk of his neck about it, he would not have got a hat full of coppers in a twelvemonth for accomplishing.  LONDON TALLOW•MAREET, (Monday, June 24).—Our market to-day in rather firmer, and prices have slightly improved. P.Y.C. is quoted at 535. to 535. 3d. per cwt. on the spot, and at 525. for the last three months' delivery. Rough fat 2s. Bd. per Sibs.