SIDESHOW ACCIDENTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 April 1931, Page 6

SIDESHOW ACCIDENTS

YOUNG WOMAN STABBED. SYDNEY, April 1. “The girl who defies death” narrowly escaped being, killed at the Royal Agricultural Show yesterday, when a swo.rdj driven through the basket in which she was locked, was thrust into her right side, narrowly missing vital organs.

More than a thousand times in Australia, and New Zealand Miss Kathleen Filmer, whose parents live in Sutherland Avenue, Paddington has been clamped down in a basket, through which a number of swords and bayonets are dexterously driven. Yesterda.y the sideshow was proceeding as usual. A knot of spectators watched the performance of what is known to stage magicians as the “Indian basket trick.” Sword after sword, bayonet after bayonet were thrust through the basket, from which issued the screams of the captive woman. Then the “professor” made the last sword thrust. It encountered some unwonted obstacle, and he withdrew it. It was dripping with blood. Miss Filmer was hastily liberated, and ambulance men from the Central District Station rendered first aid and conveyed her to St. Vincent’s Hostal, where a deep and painful wound was dressed and stitched. Last night at home Miss Filmer was undismayed. “Accidents will happen,” she said, “but I have not lost my. nerve. I will be ‘defying death’ again as soon as the doctor will allow me.

MOCK “CREMATION.” \ One of tiie spectacular sideshows at the Royal Agricultural Show almost became a tragedy yesterday, when there was a premature explosion of the chemicals used to provide the fire in the mock “cremation” of a young woman. Frank Marshall, aged 42 years, a well-known travelling showman, and his daughter, Ruth Marshall, aged 17 years, were in the middle of their act when the explosion occurred. The detonation was followed by a fierce burst of;, flame. Ambulance men from the Central District station, who are on duty at the showground, rendered first aid. The father had suffered burns to hands, arms, and face, but his daughter’s burns, though painful, were less extensive.