smoothe over the difficulty. Vain hope. No
sooner have your feet touched the perch, and you
give the little sway that brings you upright,
than you gently tip over forward, and away you
go again, on a palpably bootless errand. There
is no help for it, and the only plan is then to
accept the position like a man, come to the
ground, remount the perch, and start afresh.

It is a glorious exercise, this trapeze. There
is nothing like it in gymnastics for fascination or
usefulness. The mystery seizes its votaries heart
and soul and enlists them for ever in its service,
from which no deserters ever abscond, against
which no traitors ever turn. I know of few
sensations more soul-stirring than the exultant
feeling of freedom which pulses through the
frame as one sweeps through the air and hears
the wind rush by. Then, to hurl oneself through
space, to feel perfectly safe whether suspended
by the hands or legs, whether swinging at full
length, or gathered up into an undistinguishable
bundle of arms and legs, is a sensation that is
worth feeling. Accomplished swimmers partake
of a similar feeling of elation, when tossing upon
the lofty waves, lying coolly as the rolling billows
raise their recumbent bodies aloft or lower them
gently into the watery valleys, where nothing is
to be seen but water around and sky above, and
yet enjoying the sense that they are in perfect
safety, and that they are masters of the element.

I have tried almost every gymnastic apparatus,
including the slack and tight ropes, now
euphuistically called by French titles, and am of
opinion that the trapeze is superior to them all
for the many merits which it combines. It
develops exactly the very muscles in which we,
as a nation, are deficient, namely, those of the
chest and loins, and imparts a strength that can
be obtained in no other manner. Let a man,
no matter how powerful his muscular system,
be put on a trapeze for the first time, and set off
swinging, or even allowed to hang motionless,
and then told to bring his feet over the bar, he will
find the apparently simple task as practically
impossible as jumping over the moon. He will
kick and plunge about like a drowning man, will
get very red in the face, and make himself an
altogether ridiculous object: every plunge will
only serve to exhaust his failing powers, and in
a very short time he will be forced to loosen
his hold.

Now, there are continually cases where the
simple ability to raise the feet to the level of
the hands, or to hang by the finger-tips, will save
a man's life, and possibly through him the lives
of many others. In modern houses the staircases
are mere fire-traps, and are built as if
for the express purpose of leading the flames
through the house in the quickest way, and
effectually debarring the inmates from their
ordinary mode of escape. Most men, on finding
their egress by the stairs cut off by a body of
rushing flame, would either leap out of window
and fracture their limbs, or perish miserably in
the smoke. But a gymnast will instinctively
put his head out of window, and with a glance
take in the surrounding conditions. Should there
be time, he will quietly lower himself by a
rope extemporised from sheets and blankets;
should there be a waterspout within reach, he
will descend as easily as down a ladder; or
should there be a parapet above, he will seize it
with his hands, draw his feet over, and escape
to another house, or at all events to the side of
the house which is yet free from the flames.
Or he can pass along a ledge only an inch in
depth, by shifting his hands, and so transfer
himself to a friendly spout, or traverse the wall
until he finds a suitable place on which to drop.
Failing even such slight advantages as these he
can suspend himself by his hands for an almost
unlimited period; for the power of grasp that
enables him to cling to the swift-moving trapeze
through its wide swing renders the suspension
of the body a very simple feat; and if at the
same time he can find a resting-place for a foot,
his position will be quite easy, even though his
feet should be higher than his head. A trapezist
is perfectly indifferent as to the relative position
of his head and feet, having been accustomed to
swing by his legs, insteps, or even by a single
leg hitched over the bar. He never becomes
giddy at a height, or at a sudden reversal of
attitude, and is happily ignorant of the
inconvenience caused by the blood rushing to the
head.

For instruction, the trapeze is unrivalled, as
it forces the pupil to apply his powers in a
proper direction. If, for example, he is being
taught to develop his chest by grasping the bar
and lifting himself until his chin is above his
hands, he cannot effect the feat by a jerk or a
swing, as on a fixed bar, for unless the force be
exactly perpendicular, the trapeze swings away
and balks the irregular attempt. If, again, the
loins and abdominal muscles—pitifully weak
in most Englishmen—are to be strengthened,
the pupil cannot injure himself by vain plunges
with his legs, for no sooner does he push his
feet forward than he sets the trapeze off into a
circular kind of swing, and down come his feet
to the ground.

When once the course of instruction has been
completed, and the gymnast feels himself fairly
at home on his bar, he may be assured that he
has attained a skill for which he will ever feel
grateful, and the benefit of which he will never
lose. Even after long disuse, and in spite of
the natural stiffness brought on by increasing
years and a sedentary life, the power remains,
though its exercise is not so easy as in the olden
times, and a swing on the bar produces
unpleasant stiffness the next morning. I, who
write, have learned this fact from practical
experience. For the space of fourteen years I
was debarred from gymnastic exercises, and
never even saw a trapeze, except at a circus.
Yet, upon returning into country life, I hung an
extemporised trapeze on the branch of a tree,
and was surprised to find that I could twist
about the bar as in the days of yore, though
with a little more expenditure of labour, and
could swing by a single leg with perfect
confidence, and fling myself to the ground by a