Cremorne Gardens—The Female Blondin—Fatal Accident at Aston Park—Reproduction of the Eglinton Tournament—Newsome and Wallett—Pablo Fanque’s Circus—Equestrianism at Drury Lane—Spence Stokes—Talliott’s Circus—The Gymnasts of the Music-halls—Fatal Accident at the Canterbury—Gymnastic Brotherhoods—Sensational Feats—Sergeant Bates and the Berringtons—The Rope-trick—How to do it. Though the history of circus performances would be scarcely complete without an occasional passing glance at the music-halls, it would be impracticable to give a consecutive record of the performances at places now so numerous without producing a work that would rival in voluminousness, and, I may add, in tedium, the dramatic history of Geneste. I shall, therefore, give only a general view of them, including in the survey places which, during the summer, divide with them the patronage of the pleasure-seeking public. While the graceful performance of Leotard was attracting nightly crowds to the Alhambra, the public were invited by the lessee of Cremorne Gardens to witness the crossing of the Thames on a rope by a lady who assumed the name of the Female Blondin, and whose performance was probably suggested by the more adventurous feat of her masculine prototype over the cataract of Niagara. The performance was decidedly sensational, and attracted a great crowd; besides having the advantage of being attended with much less risk to the performer than any exhibition ever given by the cool-headed and intrepid Frenchman whose name she borrowed. Had Blondin fell at Niagara, he would have been carried over the cataract, and been dashed to pieces; if he should fall from his lofty elevation at the Crystal Palace, he would be killed instantaneously. Miss Young incurred no such risk; if she had fallen into the river, she would have found it soft, and so many boats were on its surface that the risk of drowning could not enter into the calculation. Leotard practised his aerial somersault over water before he performed in public; and it would have been well for Miss Young if she had confined her rope-walking feats to localities in which she had the water beneath her. The experiment at Cremorne served its purpose in recommending her to the attention of managers as a rival of Blondin on the high rope; but it was not long before she met with an accident which rendered, her a cripple for life, while another young woman, whom her success led to emulate her lofty feats, fell from a rope at Aston Park, in the environs of Birmingham, and was killed on the spot.