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- Little Lucians Fatal Sport
Not Allowed to Perform in Public, he turns a Handspring Through a Window.
Little Lucian Martinez has been so zealously guarded from physical and moral harm by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children that he is now dying at Roosevelt Hospital.
Lucian is only seven years old, but he cpild do more things on a trapeze and crossbar than would turn an ordinary mortal dizzy to think of. Four weeks ago he came over from Spain as a member of the Frantz family of acrobats. with his parents he had been engaged by manager T. Henry French to appear at the nightly roof Garden performances of the American Theatre.
To his unspeakable grief Lucian was de-barred from performing by the society, while his friends and relatives were away gaining applause from the big roof garden audiences, poor little Lucian was left all alone in the apartments occupied by the family on the fourth floor of 577 Ninth Avenue.
But if he couldn't turn handsprings in public, Lucien could't be prevented from going through his dearly belovid performances at home. In Europe he had won plaudits night after night from admiring crowds, and he had learned to love handsprings and tumbling as ordinary children love hoop-rollinh and tag.
So he whiled away the long evening hours at home by going through his performances just as if he was behind the footlights.
On Saterday evening Lucian was lonelier than ever, and he threw himself into his sport with more than usual ardor. His little body seemed fairly made of steel springs, it bounded so about the room. Over bed, across tables and chairs he flew like a rubber ball.
Suddenly there was a smotherd cry, A dark object shot down past the lower windows of ninth avenue house. With a crashing noise it landed on the awning stretched across the front of the building, and then a quivering, moaning little body lay still as deasth on the sidewalk.
Poor little Lucian, in the enthusiasm of his sport had forgotten all about ther open window in his room, A particulary high bound had carried him right through the aperture.
The Fall of four stories ha dbeen broken somewhat by the awning, but the surgeons at Roosevelt Hospital, where he was taken at once in an ambulance, found that the little acrobats skull had been fractured. In addition he had both arms broken and no hope is entertained of his recovery.
The New York Times
published July 24th 1893.
(Archive copy of original article A2-10)
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