A COUNTESS AS A CIRCUS PERFORMER.

Evening Post, Volume XXII, Issue 20, 23 July 1881, Page 4

A COUNTESS AS A CIRCUS PERFORMER.

? One of the prettiest of the lady riders at the Paris Hippodrome has met with a tragic end. Her name was on the bills as Mdme. Fanny Gyika. Some said that the coronet of countess embroidered on her saddle and trappings really belonged to her, while others declared that they had boon assumed with the same readiness as that which transformed the commonplace Sally Scroggins into Ada de Montmorency for stage purposes. Death has torn aside the veil, and the unfortunate lady who has just died was not only a real countess, but the wife of a very wealthy gentleman holding an important appointment at Bucharest. H<s was present at the funeral, and took greatly to heart the death o£ the lady, who.was only 24, and at the very zenith of her beauty, when she met with the accident. Her's was one of those wild and roving dispositions more suited to the gipsy Camp than to domestic duties. She left - her husband, wandered from circus to circus, refusing every offer to return home. At last she arrived in Paris, and made an engagement with M. Zidler, of the Hippodrome. On her last appearance, as she was riding her favorite charger Sultan, and after putting him through his paces, she galloped round the arena to receive the applause of the audience. Somehow the horse backed or shied at a handkerchief and unseated the rider, whose foot got fast in the stirrup. She was dragged for some distance, and when taken up had to be conveyed to the hospital with a compound fracture of the ankle. She wa3 told that she must lose her leg, but she refused to undergo the operation, preferring death, which supervened, through mortification of the injured limb, within a few days.