After seeing the performance of this antipodean, one can understand the wonderful vigour of his muscles.
Frank Maura places in the middle of the theatre a metal handle about two yards high, which supports a small saddle. The equilibrist balances his shoulders and nape upon it, and then raises both legs at a right angle. An assistant throws to him successively three enormous balls, a barrel, and a bench long enough to seat six persons. Maura catches these objects, throws them into the air, recatches them, passes them from his hands to his feet, turns them violently round and then suddenly stops their rotation from time to time. [p226] With this extraordinary strength the faculty of “prehension” is so curiously developed amongst antipodeans, that many of them can pick up a ball or an orange with their feet, and throw these objects, like a projectile, towards a given mark.
We must add to the group of equilibrists two classes of acrobats, whose appearance in the Hippodrome dates from the grand spectacular pantomimes which rendered it necessary to cover the arena with a parqueterie floor. These new comers are bicyclists and skaters.
The bar used to guide the bicycle was certain to attract the attention of the equilibrists sooner or later, and we can understand how the idea suggested itself of reproducing upon this unsteady support some of the exercises which the gymnast performs upon the fixed bar. Since the number of these borrowed “acts” is necessarily very restricted, the wish to introduce variety into his “novelty act” led the bicyclist to add a companion to his [p228] performance, who springs upon his shoulders whilst he is in motion, and executes there some of the acrobatic feats which the pad equestrians perform in the pas de deux.
The summit of the limited performance possible on a bicycle is attained when the artists attempt on a monocycle the exercises which are now frequently seen on the two wheels.
As for the skaters, they appear upon the parqueterie in order to provoke laughter by their falls; their performance belongs to comic acrobatics.
You who in former days have tested the asphalte of the Skating Rink in the Rue Blanche, with your shoulders, back, and knees, are well acquainted with the horrible sprains which followed your attempts.
The clown-skaters have found means of avoiding those inconveniences by the suppleness of complete dislocation. At the same time they make great capital out of the natural perversity which impels us to laugh at our neighbours’ falls. I shall not astonish you when I tell you that these comic equilibrists are looked down upon by “professionals.” They are held a little aloof, and are regarded as entertainers rather than artists. For they have not been forced to conquer an enemy in whose defeat lies all the glory of an equilibrist—the vertigo.