Man's Eternal Reverence for the Stunt

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 73, 23 September 1933, Page 23

Man's Eternal Reverence for the Stunt

The desire to win fnmo or notoriety l>y doing something which no one elso has done is responsible in these days for many remarkable feats of human endurance, such as long-distance flights, record altitude ascents, elimbiiig Mount Everest, and long-distunce swimming; but it also leads to performances that aro far from heroic, says a writer in the Melbourno "Age." In the United States thovo havo been many freakish exhibitions of endurance such as "marathon dancing, continuous piano playing, and flagpole sitting. The record as a flagpole sitter was held by "Shipwreck" Kelly, who perched on a. flagpole at Baltimore for 23 days and 7 hours, his food and drink being sent up to him in a bucket. A recent magazine gives an account of a now freak* ish performance by Mr. Plennio Wingo, who has walked backwards across America and Europe. Before achieving notoriety as the man who' walks "in reverse," Mr. Wingo kept a restaurant in the little town of Abilene, in Toxnsj but the business failed, and he had to look for a job. Ho went to the neighbouring town of Port Worth, and there he was engaged by the promoters of a cattle show to advortiso the event by walking backwards through Port Worth and other towns with a placard about the show on his back. It was such a success as a means of livelihood that he walked backwards to other towns and large cities like Chicago and Bt. Louis, and advertised theatrical entertainments and other events^ • Everywhere along his routo his appearance excited public interest; his arrival at each town waa heralded in the newspapers, and at some of them he was officially received by the ■Mayor. > Dogs »nd children followed him for miles. One dog, which developed a. keen interest in him, followed Mm for more than a hundred miles.; It is generally assumed that stunts of this kind are a phase of, modern civilisation; but though it is true that they,have never before been so numerous, history records some remarkable stunts which attracted widespread at-, tention long before the era of stunt newspapers'. For instance, in 1599, William Kemp, a comic actor, created a great sensation in England by dancing the Morris dance along the road from London to Norwich, a distance of about 120 miles. The journey occupied 27 days, but Kemp rested for twothirds of the time. He set out from London at 7 a.m. on tho first Monday in Lent, accompanied by Thomas Slye. ■who, with pipe and drum,, provided '. music for the danco. He was also accompanied by his servant, William i Bee, and a man named George Sprat, ; who had. to see that he danced all the :

way. "Crowds lined the route as he passed, sometimes to his discoinh' ture by getting in the way and hindering j his progress, which was none too easy at the best, so thick was the mud and so deep the holes," states Joan Parkas, the author of "Travel in England in the Seventeenth Century." "Some followed him for long miles—fifty pcoplo accompanied him out of Brentwood, though ho stole away early. Others, of greater daring, undertook to tread a mile or two with him." Tho record national outburst "of enthusiasm over a successful stunt belongs to the United States in connection with the solo flight Of Charles Lindbergh from New York to Paris in 1927, by which he won a prize of £5000 offered by Mr. Raymond Orteig, the owner of two large hotels in New York. Mr. Frederick' Lewis Allen, in recalling in his book, "Only Yesterday," the elevation of Lindbergh to a national idol, writes:—-"Three aeroplanes were waiting for favourable weather conditions to hop oft from Boosevelt Field, just outside New York, in quest of the prize—the Columbia, which was to be piloted by Clarence Chamberlain and Lloyd Bertaud; the America, with Lieutenant-Commander Byrd, of North Pole fame, in command) and the Spirit of St. Louis, which had abruptly arrived from the Pacific coast with a lone young man named Charles A. Lindbergh at the controls. There was no telling which of the three aeroplanes would get off first, but clearly the public favourite was the young man from the West; He wav modest,: he seemed to kn«w "his business, *nd there Tvas something particularly dar-j ing about his idea of making the perilous journey alone, and he was as; attractive-looking a youngster as ever! had faced a camera Mian. The reporters—to his annoyance—called him: "Lucky Lindy" and the ""Flying Fool."i ■"On the evening of May 19, 1927,: Lindbergh decided that, although it; ■was drizzling on Long Island, the weather reports gave a chance of fair skies [ fot his trip, and he had better get: ready. He spent the small hours of the next morning in sleepless preparations, went to Curtiss Field, received further weather news, had vhis aeroplane fuelled, and a little before 8; o'clock on the morning of May 20 climbed in and took off for Paris. The next day came the successive reports of Lindbergh's success—he had reached the Irish coast, he was crossing over, England, he was over the Channel, he had landed' at Le Boui-get—to be enthusiastically -mobbed Tjy a vast crowd; of Frenchmen —and the American people went almost mad with joy and relief. ; ■