"THE WHIRLWIND OF DEATH."

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 13, 15 July 1905, Page 13

"THE WHIRLWIND OF DEATH."

The Paris correspondent of London Truth has the following in connection with the death of a French artist while looping the loop in a motor-car, referred to in these columns a few weeks ago. "The l Whirlwind of Death" was not long in justifying its title. "Le Tourbillon do la Mort" is a development of "looping the loop" idea: a vehicle, a little motor-car for, choice, with machinery removed, coasta down an inclined plane. At the foot of the incline the plane tilts up rather suddenly, the car is shot forward 1 , mounts in the air, turns a somersault, coming down on its four wheels on another plane farther on, where it is stopped. As you may guess, a human being is placed in the car ; and, to make the spectacle still more takiiig, the occupant is a young lady. Every evening at the Casino de Paris Mile. Marcelle Randal shot "le tourbillon de la mort." On stopping she untied herseK and stepped out to make her bow to the public. She fainted twice in the course of a few days, and had to be untied by those near her and lifted out. But the more distant spectators never suspected how much she suffered, and could not see below the deceptive rouge on her cheeks. They had seen her advertised as an Iphigenia who risked her life every evening for a motive of filial affection. To some degree this was true. Her father, an old man, poor and broken-down in health, had invented this "tourbillon de la mort," but could not find any one who would risk it for a season for less than 100,000 francs. The daughter, who had supported her father, said one day that she would do it. He had such utter faith in his discovery, as he called it, that he accepted her offer, and, when she recoiled, persuaded her. She had a terrible misgiving on taking her seat in the motor for the first time, and at the close of the somersault fainted outright, and was taken for dead. Then she steeled her nerves and fainted only twice since then until the last "trip." But her health visibly ran down, and she confessed that she hated the horrid thing, and felt unutterable disgust at the public, which seemed to her worse than the negroes of savage, wild Africa. The most trying moment was when the car left the grouna. Just then a powerful spring, acting on the back wheels, was released in order to bring about vie dreadful somersault. Every time her neck bumped against the back of the car, and she wondered whether the sensation sue experienced was like that of being guillotined. Sometimes the shock was intolerable, sometimes it was bearable. But a moral or nervous state had been induced that was worse than any physical pain. She died a hundred deaths between the trips. This is the state of gymnasts who, when muscle is giving way, have to perform desperate trapeze leaps. They now say that Mile. Randal had a weak heart. Possibly. But she must have had a noble spirit. , 1