Smith began his enterprise with a startling novelty—a ‘female Blondin’ who undertook to cross the Thames. Late on an August afternoon of 1861 thousands of spectators thronged the river banks and the esplanade of Cremorne, or waited in small boats to see this new heroine of Niagara. A tight rope was stretched across the river at a height varying from 50 to 100 feet, and at last the female Blondin appeared. She was a delicate-looking little woman, who called herself Madame Genvieve. Her real name was Selina Young, and she was the granddaughter of James Bishop the showman. One has seen the male Blondin making a careful inspection of his guy-lines and supports before starting on his perilous course. His female imitator began her progress at once. When she had traversed about two-thirds of the distance, she paused to rest on the narrow timber ledge of one of the main supports of the rope. The rest was a long one, and it was soon felt that something was wrong when the attendants were seen tightening the remaining 600 or 700 feet of rope. At last, after this trying pause—she had started three-quarters of an hour earlier, and it was now growing dusk and chilly—she moved a few feet forward; then she halted, and then moved again. But the rope was now swaying like a garden swing, for the guy-lines had been cut—apparently by some scoundrel who wanted the leaden weights. Attempts were being made to throw cords over the rope, when suddenly she let go her balance-pole. It was a terrible moment, but with infinite pluck and presence of mind the female Blondin caught the rope with both hands, then a couple of weights suspended from it, and next the cords by which that part of the rope was steadied. Descending by the grasp of a three-quarter-inch cord, she reached a boat, and was saved. {14a} But the warning was disregarded, and the very next year the female Blondin was performing at Highbury Barn. Here she fell from a rope which was damp and slippery, and was made a cripple for life. {14b}