Another performer, dressed in
his ordinary street clothes, was tied up in a bag and jumped
about two-thirds of this height into the same tank, breaking open
the bag and undressing himself before coming to the surface. In
the same performance a female acrobat made a backward dive from
the topmost point of the building into a net stretched about ten
feet above the floor. Nearly every large acrobatic entertainment
has one of these individuals who seem to experience no difficulty
in duplicating their feats night after night.
It is a common belief that people falling from great heights die
in the act of descent. An interview with the sailor who fell from
the top-gallant of an East Indiaman, a height of 120 feet, into
the water, elicited the fact that during the descent in the air,
sensation entirely disappeared, but returned in a slight degree
when he reached the water, but he was still unable to strike out
when rising to the surface. By personal observation this man
stated that he believed that if he had struck a hard substance
his death would have been painless, as he was sure that he was
entirely insensible during the fall.
A writer in the Pall Mall Gazette, in speaking of the accidents
which had happened in connection with the Forth Bridge, tells of
a man who trusted himself to work at the height of 120 feet above
the waters of the Firth, simply grasping a rope.
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