On the thread about Human Cannonballs Cecil, peace be unto him, mentions the first such projectile, a “Young woman named Zazel”. Actually it was a young man who at that point in his career posed as a woman becasue his mentor, The Great Farini, thought it made better theatre. “Farini” was a Canadian, an early tightrope walker and the first person, I think, to walk a tightrope over Niagara Falls.
The story of both of them (including their real names, which I forget) is in the book “The Great Farini”, a good and interesting read.
Bumped, since Cecil’s column is back on the SD front page.
I wonder about the first sentence of the last paragraph: “Historian A.H. Coxe says of 50 human cannonballs more than 30 have been killed, mostly by falling outside the net.” Obviously there have been more than 50 human cannonballs over the years, and equally obviously, I presume, Coxe wasn’t saying that there’s a more than 3-in-5 risk of death for such stunts. Did Cecil mean to say, “of 50 human cannonballs who have been in an accident or hurt during a performance, more than 30 have been killed…”?
