SUICIDE ACTS

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 189, 12 August 1939, Page 3 (Supplement)

SUICIDE ACTS

THE air was electric with suspense. Many of the audience were secretly afraid that they would see the girl, performing graceful evolutions 45 feet above the stage, kill herself. Every heart thumped as every eye followed her slim figure flying from swinging bar to swinging bar. Then the audience leapt to its feet in horror! She had missed her grip and, screaming, crashed neavily to the floor. A few convulsive, movements—then the hush of death. A swivel in the trapeze had parted. That was how Lilian Leitzel, one of the ' greatest trapeze artists in the world, died. j Many people think that such death- , defying feats should be prohibited, but, t as a rule, the greater the risk to the j performer, the more the public applauds. • Audiences get a thrill from watching a ] young girl defying death, perhaps , accomplishing successfully a feat that ] has killed some other performer. 5 To satisfy this demand trapeze i artists continually have to stage more ] and more sensational acts. Something s ordinary, safe, will not bring in the < receipts. A thrill is what the public f demands and thrills can be provided £ only at the expense of safety. As the t performer pauses for the death-defying feat, the audience holds its breath." It € knows that should anything go wrong, j it will witness the death of a fellow- v being. Yet that very thrill is what t prompted many of them to see the j

Where Lives Are Risked For A Thrill

By w.jx: show. Surely, if It is necessary to attempt these feats to satisfy the craving, the performer could have a net spread in case? But no, the harder the task, the more difficult the feat; the greater the risk, the bigger the thrill. Aerial performers are among the bravest of people, for not only do they face obvious dangers, but they face perils of which the public know jiothing. Care is taken to protect performers against hurt, but it is not possible to guard against every eventuality. That swivel which parted, to send Lilian Leitzel hurtling to her death, was weakened bv "crystallisation." Many are the deaths that have been attributed to this weakening of steel through granulation. Sudden changes in temperature increase the risks taken by the man on the flying trapeze. Cold weather tends to make the steel brittle. Subjected to sudden strain, it may snap. The rigging must be soundly erected, but it sometimes happens that several wires are attached to the same anchor ring. The varying strains put on the ring may cause something to "give," as in one case in Madison Square Garden, New York, some years ago. The strength of rigging as a whole is governed by its weakest link. One faulty item of equipment may cause an accident and serious injury—or even death—to the performer. Though these perils aggravate the everyday risks faced by circus and stage performers, many an act is carried out without the safety offered bv a net. The thrill is greater that way—and the public demand thrills.