IN THE CIRCUS RING.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXX, Issue 11168, 29 March 1930, Page 9

IN THE CIRCUS RING.

WOMEN MORE DARING THAN MEN EASILY WIN THE PALM People often ask me what is my private opinion of women in the ring, and when I tell them, they go away laughing heartily, firmly convinced I am “pulling their legs” writes Bertram W. Nulls in “Tit-Bits.” You see, my firm belief -is that women are equal and occasionally even superior to the most daneg nude performers. All the time I have been associated with circus folk I have never come across a woman who cannot- do any trick a rnan can do. That why, when I am arranging my programme,! I always endeavour to balance the feminine and masculine element as much as possible. There is no greater fallacy than tho theory that a woman is more L r show than work in the circus. "Why, I could get together a programme m-. eluding some of the finest sin-!>■ acrobatic and animal turns in the world composed solely of women. Read any book on tbe circus an! y.m, will find women have excelled, not merely in the more decorative turns, but as lion-tamers, stunt purveyors. or trapeze artistes. The first person to attempt the triple somersau't, at- that time considered humanly impossible, was a woman. And some of the finest animal trainers in the world have been women.

Nearly all the women at Olympia can do various other turns besides their own. Adele Nelson, for instance, besides being an expert- elephant trainer, can do a bare-back riding act. wire act, acrobatic dancing act, and she has performed in the ling with a group of lions. Incidentally. it was while performing with these animals that she was attacked and badly mauled, but with astonishing pluck finished her a<t. That, I submit, is being something mure tliau merely decorative. Take the Fhieoris, who are expert trapeze artists. One of the girls does acrobatic stunts hanging by a strap to her partner who holds the end U) liis teeth—the slightest slip or me.— calculation in grasping the cor.l wou’d mean instant death.

Nearly every circus artiste bus had an accident at least once in her liie. Broken limbs are accepted philosophically. They seem to feel it is all in the day's work. There’s Dainty Marie, for instauce, one of the bestknown acrobats. Marie lias done every style of work and she has broken most of the bones in her body

at one time or another. Once siie went ou working after having smashed two bones in her arm. Another time she was swinging out over the footlights in a vaudevil.e house when something broke and site landed right in the middle of line audience. Slie was badly hurt- —o were the people she landed on—- but in a few months she was at it again. "When it comes to daring, the palm goes to the woman artiste evvy time. I have known a woman huu-

tamer enter a cage full of lions that had never been handled. And I know of one woman-—Tilly by name, fturcus in America as a lion-tamer- - who made a brilliant debut in Paris with a troupe of lions who, the day before. had devoured their trainer. Tilly's speciality is lying down on her lions and putting 'her head inside their mouths. AYhen last- I heard of Her she was still unmarried. Bur. that is not because she is unattractive. She lias had scores of proposals, hut at the last- moment- she could never get herself to part with her lions The woman artiste's life is by no moans an easy one. If >he is an acrobat there must- he daily practice in order that her muscles remain supple. There is nothing the woman artiste fears more than to deve'f ;> large and manly muscles. That A why you will often hear of women artistes going in for games so as o retain their wonderful grace and (e----mininitv.