A TRICK CYCLIST'S DIVE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 46, 23 February 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

A TRICK CYCLIST'S DIVE.

A THRILLING FEAT THAT ENDED

FATALLY.

The New York papers have long and thrilling descriptions of the death of Joseph B. Starck, a young trick-cyclist, when making a sensational aerial dive into a tank of water before a gathering of about three thousand people. The bicyclist's performance was done on an aerial platform far up above even the high galleries of the building. Here he went through a varied performance. At one end of the platform was a steep chute, 150 feet in length, which suddenlybroke off.

Thirty-five feet below was a tank of shallow water, ten feet wide and three feet deep. It was set thirty feet from the end of the structure and was the natural end of the dive, though to the eye of the spectator it seemed impossible for the diver to reach it. But the w>.ole thing was arranged with reference to a bicycle descending the chute at high speed. On the skill and daring- of the rider depended much—his life, or at least many broken bones, being the penalty for any mistake.

The great hall was crowded with men, women and children. There were many "ohs" and "ahs" when Starck and his assistant climbed to the aerial platform, where the first part of his performance took place. Some of the women turned pale, and young- girls hid their faces. But there Is a fascination in acts in high air which is irresistible, and soon the rtudlence was watching the cyclist in his difficult feats With rapt attention.

These feats were the usual.ones. They are difficult anywhere, but ninety feet in air they became positively thrilling.

Then the gymnast prepared for the final act—the "dive—the plunge which was to have so horrible an ending.

Starck was very deliberate about his preparations. That was a part of the act. It got the nerves of the spectators keyed up to a high tension and gave them time to imagine all sorts of horrible catastrophes and added to the "thrill" of the act itself, which, was really one of seconds. Adjusting himself slowly on his wheels, ■which his assistant held, at the top of the steep incline, while the band ceasefl to play and the spectators held their breaths, the bicyclist braced himself, carefully measured the distance ahead of him, and suddenly fired a pistol. The assistant let go the wheel, Starck bent forward until his body almost touched the handle bars. The light thing sprang forward and came down the incline at terrific speed. Some said afterwards that the wheel wobbled, went wrong, when part of the way down the chute. But the mass of the great audience saw nothing but the swift, arrow-like flight of the cyclist, with ever increasing speed. At the end of the chute Starck cast the wheel away, poised for an instant in the air and dived straight into the tank of water, with a canvas net underneath the water to break his fall and keep him from striking the bottom. Starck dived straight—too straight. Instead of striking the water In the middle of the tank, he crashed like a catapult straight against the further side, and his head, striking the thick planking with terrific force, crushed in the skull, killing him Instantly. A burst of thunderous applause greeted the conclusion of the act. Not one in that great assemblage, not even his sister, sitting at a point of vantage directly opposite the tank, dreamed "of the tragedy which had taken place in that three feet of water. ■ ■

The applause continued, grew yet more vociferous, but no one appeared to answer to It. And still the audience was unconscious. Then a man who was in the ring ran up to the tank to see'why Starck did not reappear. When he saw the water red with the dead man's blood, he fell backward in a faint.

The' audience, thinking: this a part»of the act, thundered still louder. But when two amateur clowns ran forward and lifted the body to view, the applause changed to cries and shrieks. Women fainted and children, frighten' ed at the sight, began to cry. . The manager of the circus:, scarce knowing what to do, placed chairs together and stretched the dripping form across them. Then the fact ■ that the sight was scarcely fit for the eyes •of women and children struck some one and the body was removed to an ante 1 room. ' ' By this time a large portion of .the audience . was in a. • deplorable state. Women hysterically bade their escorts take them away, and though the band played loudly, it could 'not drown the cries of the sister who had been a witKess to her brother's ghastly end. "Joe was all the World to me," she said at an interview In the evening. "We lived together. I kept house and he supported me. He and ills partner, have been doing this act for three years and never met with a serious accident. I can't understand how he did It." The cause of the accident was said to be a mlsjudgment of distance when 1t came to the time to dive, whlcli caused the diver to shoot too far out and strike the side .of the tank instead of the middle, padded with a water and canvas bag. »