MAN AND THE STUNT

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 October 1933, Page 4

MAN AND THE STUNT

NOTABLE EXAMPLES The desire to win fame or notoriety by doing something which no one else has done is responsible in these days for many remarkable feats of human endurance, such as long-distance flights, record altitude ascents, climbing Mount Everest, and long-distance swimming; but it also leads to performances that are far from, heroic, says a writer in the Melbourne “Ago.” In the United. States there have 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 new freakish performance by Mr. Plennie 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 Texas; hut the business failed and he had to look for a job. He went to the neighbouring town of Fort Worth, and there lie was engaged by the promoters of a cattle show to advertise the event- by walking backwards through Fort 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 St. Louis, and advertised theatrical entertainments and other events. Everywhere along his route his appearance excited public interest; his arrival at each town was heralded in the newspapers, and at some of them he was officially received by the Mayor. Dogs and children followed him for miles. One dog, which developed a keen interest in him, followed him 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 sonic remarkable stunts which attracted widespread attention 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 jourfiey occupied 27 days, but Kemp rested for two-thirds of the time. He set out from London at 7 a.m. on the first Monday in Lent, accompanied by Thomas Slye, who, with pipe and drum, provided music for the dance. He was also accompanied by his servant, William 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 discomfort by getting in the way and hindering his progress, which was none too easy at the best, so thick was the mud and so deep the holes,” states Joan Parkes the author of “Travel in England in the Seventeenth Century.” “Some followed him for long miles—fifty people accompanied him out of Brentwood, though he stole away early. Others, of greater daring, undertook to tread a mile or two with him.”

“LUCKY LINDY” The 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 £500(1 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 off from Roosevelt 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-Comman-der 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 was modest, he seemed to know his business, and there was something particularly daring about his idea of making the perilous journey alone, and he was as attractive-looking a youngster as ever had faced a camera man. The reporters —to his annoyance —called him “Lucky Lindy” and the “Flying Fool.” “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 for 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 his 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 Bourget —to be enthusiastically mobbed by a vast crowd of Frenchmen —and the American people went almost mad with joy and relief.”