### DOWN THE INCLINE
#### By Charles Newton Hood
“All that I had to do to earn my one hundred and twenty-five dollars a week salary was, four times each week-day, to climb to the top of a high tower, mount a bicycle, ride it down a long, narrow incline, pitched at an angle of about forty-five degrees, then up a few feet and out through the air, across a gap of thirty feet to another platform, and so to the ground.”
It was John Manser who was speaking, formerly one of the most daring performers in what is called the carnival business.
“No, I am not doing that sort of an act now.
“My mother had been writing to me, begging me to stop, but I was looking forward to getting married, and that one hundred and twenty-five dollars a week was making the nest-egg grow.
“I was one of the ‘feature’ acts furnished by the Ferari Brothers to street fairs, carnivals and the like, and had stepped from construction boss to performer one day by taking the place of an indisposed athlete at an hour’s notice, and leaping the gap successfully on his bicycle without any previous rehearsal. I was at once put on as a regular performer with the company.
“My work did not seem so very terrible to me. With the bands playing and with the thousands of happy spectators looking on, it was rather pleasant than otherwise to climb to the top of the high platform, dressed in my gay costume, and at the word, come hurtling down the steep run, and then up and out through the air like a bird.
“All that seemed to be required was to be absolutely sure that the apparatus was put up strong and perfectly true, and that the gap was of exactly the correct width. Mine was precisely twenty-eight feet and four inches. I always superintended the erection of everything myself, and trued every part up with the utmost care.
“In the act itself, it required only strong hands and arms to keep the bicycle steady and straight down the run, and to lean back a little and give a strong up pull on the handle-bar when we ‘took off’ for the jump, so that the machine would surely strike on the rear wheel on the other side, to prevent the shock which would throw me headlong if the front wheel should strike first, or even at the same instant.
“All summer long I had enjoyed the work, and I often wondered that they should pay me so much for such a simple thing. Even when the performer who ‘looped-the-loop’ on a bicycle in another part of the grounds fell and was crippled for life, I ascribed it to the fact that his health was not very good, and that he sometimes resorted to stimulants to help him through his act; and his misfortune did not render me at all nervous regarding my own work.
“It was the last day of the carnival at Grand Creek. We had had a most successful week, and on the closing night it was estimated that not less than fifteen thousand people crowded the grounds. The last of my four rides for the day was scheduled for eleven o’clock at night, and was to be the closing feature.
“Promptly at five minutes of eleven I climbed to the platform, and my bicycle was sent up to me by rope and pulley. It was a heavy, dark night, but the thousands of electric lights made the grounds almost as light as day. Little lamps were strung thickly all down the run, and the skeleton framework of my tower and trestles was outlined with them.
“A fitful, eddying wind had come up, which roared dismally through the timbers. It swayed the big framework somewhat, but not enough to trouble me.
“The people had come crowding to my portion of the grounds, and as I gazed down at their upturned faces, massed so thickly together below me, the sight was a weird one under the electric lights.
“Straight ahead of me lay the narrow run, with its broad stripe of white down the center, to aid me in steering, then the ‘saucer,’ as it was called, at the bottom, where the run turned up toward the ‘take-off,’ then the wide gap and the farther platform, with its even wider guiding stripe of white.
“I gave the bicycle a quick examination, stood up straight and made the little posing flourish which is expected of all athletes, fixed my bicycle on the run, and seated myself firmly. The official announcer below raised his hand. The band stopped playing, and there was that breathless hush of apprehension and expectation which is so carefully worked up for sensational acts.
“‘All ready?’ shouted the announcer.
“‘Right!’ I responded.
“‘Go!’
“The snare-drummer of the band struck into the long roll with which he always accompanied my flights. Instantly I removed the restraining foot which I had kept upon the platform, placed it upon the locked pedal, and shot rapidly down the incline.
“At that instant every electric light in the city of Grand Creek went out!
“It was a darkness doubly dense and awful after the brilliancy of the moment before. Perfectly helpless, I was plunging down a steep, narrow incline toward probable death. If the wheel swerved but a little to the right or left, I should sweep over the edge and be dashed to pieces on the ground below.
“My bicycle, rushing down the incline, travelled at the rate of fifty miles an hour. Sometimes now I awake at night with a gasp of horror from having lived over those awful moments, but at the time my thoughts were cool and collected.
“‘It all depends on you, Jack, my boy,’ I told myself. ‘You can’t be smashed any harder for keeping your head.’
“I knew that the wheel was absolutely straight for the jump when I started, and grasping the handles, I bent every effort toward keeping the wheel perfectly rigid. Down I rushed through the darkness, and so strange was the sensation that it almost seemed as if the wheel had left the run, and was sailing through the air. The speed seemed doubly terrific. Even if I kept the run, could I hold the wheel for the jump and what then?
“The saucer came almost before I expected it. In spite of myself I must have given a spasmodic twist to the handles, for the wheel twisted in my hands and swerved. I threw myself frantically to one side and lost consciousness!
“Yes, I’m alive yet. Entirely uninjured except for the thump which put me to sleep when I struck the platform.
“The great momentum swept both the wheel and myself from the edge of the take-off and hurled us against the yielding bodies of those in the front row of the crowd, backed by the thousands of other spectators, as against a carefully prepared and cushioned buffer. It was learned that not less than eighteen persons received the impact of the wheel and myself at the same instant, and so scattered was the blow that nobody was injured in the slightest.
“One very fat man, who had been standing with his handsome top-hat held behind him, told me that he sat down with fearful suddenness after receiving my head in his stomach, and he showed me his hat; but he wasn’t hurt.
“The next day the Ferari Brothers Carnival Company went to Battle Rapids, but my ticket read East Putney, Vermont.”
### DOWN THE INCLINE
#### By Charles Newton Hood
“All that I had to do to earn my one hundred and twenty-five dollars a week salary was, four times each week-day, to climb to the top of a high tower, mount a bicycle, ride it down a long, narrow incline, pitched at an angle of about forty-five degrees, then up a few feet and out through the air, across a gap of thirty feet to another platform, and so to the ground.”
It was John Manser who was speaking, formerly one of the most daring performers in what is called the carnival business.
“No, I am not doing that sort of an act now.
“My mother had been writing to me, begging me to stop, but I was looking forward to getting married, and that one hundred and twenty-five dollars a week was making the nest-egg grow.
“I was one of the ‘feature’ acts furnished by the Ferari Brothers to street fairs, carnivals and the like, and had stepped from construction boss to performer one day by taking the place of an indisposed athlete at an hour’s notice, and leaping the gap successfully on his bicycle without any previous rehearsal. I was at once put on as a regular performer with the company.
“My work did not seem so very terrible to me. With the bands playing and with the thousands of happy spectators looking on, it was rather pleasant than otherwise to climb to the top of the high platform, dressed in my gay costume, and at the word, come hurtling down the steep run, and then up and out through the air like a bird.
“All that seemed to be required was to be absolutely sure that the apparatus was put up strong and perfectly true, and that the gap was of exactly the correct width. Mine was precisely twenty-eight feet and four inches. I always superintended the erection of everything myself, and trued every part up with the utmost care.
“In the act itself, it required only strong hands and arms to keep the bicycle steady and straight down the run, and to lean back a little and give a strong up pull on the handle-bar when we ‘took off’ for the jump, so that the machine would surely strike on the rear wheel on the other side, to prevent the shock which would throw me headlong if the front wheel should strike first, or even at the same instant.
“All summer long I had enjoyed the work, and I often wondered that they should pay me so much for such a simple thing. Even when the performer who ‘looped-the-loop’ on a bicycle in another part of the grounds fell and was crippled for life, I ascribed it to the fact that his health was not very good, and that he sometimes resorted to stimulants to help him through his act; and his misfortune did not render me at all nervous regarding my own work.
“It was the last day of the carnival at Grand Creek. We had had a most successful week, and on the closing night it was estimated that not less than fifteen thousand people crowded the grounds. The last of my four rides for the day was scheduled for eleven o’clock at night, and was to be the closing feature.
“Promptly at five minutes of eleven I climbed to the platform, and my bicycle was sent up to me by rope and pulley. It was a heavy, dark night, but the thousands of electric lights made the grounds almost as light as day. Little lamps were strung thickly all down the run, and the skeleton framework of my tower and trestles was outlined with them.
“A fitful, eddying wind had come up, which roared dismally through the timbers. It swayed the big framework somewhat, but not enough to trouble me.
“The people had come crowding to my portion of the grounds, and as I gazed down at their upturned faces, massed so thickly together below me, the sight was a weird one under the electric lights.
“Straight ahead of me lay the narrow run, with its broad stripe of white down the center, to aid me in steering, then the ‘saucer,’ as it was called, at the bottom, where the run turned up toward the ‘take-off,’ then the wide gap and the farther platform, with its even wider guiding stripe of white.
“I gave the bicycle a quick examination, stood up straight and made the little posing flourish which is expected of all athletes, fixed my bicycle on the run, and seated myself firmly. The official announcer below raised his hand. The band stopped playing, and there was that breathless hush of apprehension and expectation which is so carefully worked up for sensational acts.
“‘All ready?’ shouted the announcer.
“‘Right!’ I responded.
“‘Go!’
“The snare-drummer of the band struck into the long roll with which he always accompanied my flights. Instantly I removed the restraining foot which I had kept upon the platform, placed it upon the locked pedal, and shot rapidly down the incline.
“At that instant every electric light in the city of Grand Creek went out!
“It was a darkness doubly dense and awful after the brilliancy of the moment before. Perfectly helpless, I was plunging down a steep, narrow incline toward probable death. If the wheel swerved but a little to the right or left, I should sweep over the edge and be dashed to pieces on the ground below.
“My bicycle, rushing down the incline, travelled at the rate of fifty miles an hour. Sometimes now I awake at night with a gasp of horror from having lived over those awful moments, but at the time my thoughts were cool and collected.
“‘It all depends on you, Jack, my boy,’ I told myself. ‘You can’t be smashed any harder for keeping your head.’
“I knew that the wheel was absolutely straight for the jump when I started, and grasping the handles, I bent every effort toward keeping the wheel perfectly rigid. Down I rushed through the darkness, and so strange was the sensation that it almost seemed as if the wheel had left the run, and was sailing through the air. The speed seemed doubly terrific. Even if I kept the run, could I hold the wheel for the jump and what then?
“The saucer came almost before I expected it. In spite of myself I must have given a spasmodic twist to the handles, for the wheel twisted in my hands and swerved. I threw myself frantically to one side and lost consciousness!
“Yes, I’m alive yet. Entirely uninjured except for the thump which put me to sleep when I struck the platform.
“The great momentum swept both the wheel and myself from the edge of the take-off and hurled us against the yielding bodies of those in the front row of the crowd, backed by the thousands of other spectators, as against a carefully prepared and cushioned buffer. It was learned that not less than eighteen persons received the impact of the wheel and myself at the same instant, and so scattered was the blow that nobody was injured in the slightest.
“One very fat man, who had been standing with his handsome top-hat held behind him, told me that he sat down with fearful suddenness after receiving my head in his stomach, and he showed me his hat; but he wasn’t hurt.
“The next day the Ferari Brothers Carnival Company went to Battle Rapids, but my ticket read East Putney, Vermont.”