THE DAREDEVILS: #6

DESPERADO'S
German acrobat Ernest Gadbin performed for Barnum and Bailey just prior to World War I & was perhaps the greatest of all the Daredevils. Billed as Desperado, he did a swan dive from an 80 foot high platform landing on his chest at a speed said to be more than 100 feet per second, on a highly polished inclined wooden ramp that was also sprinkled with a thin layer of corn meal. The ramp was turned up at both ends and he would skid down one end, up the other, fly through the air, and land in a net.