Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

786 страница из 895

Happily the days are over for such an exhibition. The days are past also for bull baiting, badger baiting, cock fighting, and even for fistic contests.

Nevertheless, we expect human nature is much the same as it was hundreds of years ago.

It is true we stick a silk hat upon our heads, and put an eye glass on one of our orbits, and disguise the ladies of our family in pull back gowns and high heels; the love of the horrible is not even scotched, much less killed.

A Christian company sit and stand about the floor and galleries of some great building ostensibly devoted to the arts, to see the wonderful Zazel flirt with the King of Terrors.

They watch the graceful creature shot from a cannon, holding their breath as she flies through the air and alights safely in the net.

Then the poor girl, carrying her life in her hand, in obedience to the bond of service with her worthy master, walks along a wire as high from the earth as a low cloud in a hilly country, in peril of imminent death.

We do not pay to see the clever manner in which Zazel balances herself, because, if the feat were performed at a lower and safer altitude, there would be few, if any, spectators.