brings the career of that article of costume to
an untimely end. This is a brief history of the
Smash complicated, so called from the number
of persons involved in it, and the manner in
which all the victims of the accident become
mixed up together in one common ruin.

We now come to the Stagger victorious, and
the Scramble ineffectual. It has doubtless been
the lot of most persons, who have looked on at
the sport of skating, to have their attention
drawn to the conduct of some individual engaged
in that pastime, who suddenly, and for some
unexplained reason, flings his head and body back,
stamps seven times with the heels of his skates,
whirls his arms around, casts his stick into a
distant parish, plunges forward, swerves,
advances several hurried paces, stamps more wildly
than before, revolves, clutches at the air, bows
himself double, again flings himself back,
recovers himself and his balance without any actual
fall, and stands perfectly still for several minutes,
with his hands supporting the small of his back.
This is the Stagger victorious, concerning which
it may be said, in one word, that it is a mistake,
and that it is better to tumble down at once
than to rick the back, strain the abdomen, and
dislocate the limbs generally, by the manoeuvres
just described. But if the Stagger victorious be
a mistake, what is the Scramble ineffectual—a
performance in which our acrobat goes through
the whole of the above-mentioned extravagances,
and tumbles down after all? This is the most
disappointing and the most humiliating of all
modes of falling: the unhappy victim of the
Scramble ineffectual having secured the attention
of everybody present by the prolonged
struggle which precedes his ruin.

Perhaps, however, the most undignified of all
tumbles is that which has been characterised as
the Drop sudden. It is a very simple
transaction, commonly unattended with serious
results, and consists, to put the affair in two
words, of a sudden (and involuntary) sitting
down act on the part of the sufferer, who drops,
without any apparent cause, upon the ice in a
sitting posture, with his legs stretched out
straight in front of him. It has been remarked,
by great observers and profound thinkers, that
the patient in this case will ordinarily remain in
this position for some minutes before attempting
to rise; that he is apt to look about him, and
that, after picking up his hat which the Drop
sudden invariably jerks off, he will take a
handkerchief therefrom, and carefully blow his nose
whilst still in the sitting posture. From these
observations, the profound thinkers aforesaid
have drawn the conclusion that the Drop sudden
is a less alarming seizure than any other to which
skaters are liable.

Let us speak of the Fall facetious. The Fall
facetious is in its earlier stages intimately mixed
up with the Scramble ineffectual. It is generally
preceded by the same resistance and staggering,
and even the fall itself has no distinguished
character of its own. It is in this case a question
of the tumbler and not of the tumble.
He who treats his fall in the facetious manner
will (with anguish in every limb) get up with a
smiling countenance, joining the laugh against
himself, and even sometimes muttering in a gay
manner disparaging remarks about his own
clumsiness, or faintly humming a lively air.
Let no person be taken in by this. Instances
have been known, in which sufferers by the
Fall facetious have skated for three minutes
and a half after their accident just as if
nothing had happened, have then cast a hurried
look around the swift circle in which they have
been performing, and, coming to the conclusion
that nobody was looking, have limped off to
some, secret island, and have been found there,
hours afterwards, sitting among the water-fowl
and groaning with anguish.

The Fall facetious, though a less candid, is a
more amiable view of our subject than that
exhibited in the Tumble truculent. The Tumbler
truculent is a man of a somewhat savage but a
sincere and open character, who, when he is in
a rage and in considerable bodily discomfort, is
at no pains to conceal the fact. It is his habit,
as is the case with most dangerous characters,
to dine early, and he has come out to skate
immediately after his meal. Under these
circumstances the shock of a severe fall is no
doubt anything but conducive to digestion, yet
is this no efficient defence of the fury with which
the Tumbler truculent turns upon the small boy
upon the bank and asks him "What the devil he
is laughing at?" It must not be forgotten that
(at least as far as the present writer's knowledge
extends) the Tumble truculent has not arisen
from any fault on the skater's part. He has
either been tripped up, or has stumbled over
some defect in the ice; and the tripper-up, or the
ice itself, as the case may be, will at such times
come in for certain remarks which are the reverse
of complimentary. It is a fatal error to display
emotion on the ice, and a man will meet with
no sympathy who resents his fall as a deadly
injury.

We have now got in our examination of this
great subject to the eighth and last division of
falls, and the Crash unresisted remains alone
for consideration. Perhaps, of all the orders of
tumbling, there is none so opposed to this last
upon the list as the Scramble ineffectual. Just
as the skater in that instance declined to accept
his doom, so in the case of the Crash unresisted,
he takes the accident as it comes, makes no
resistance, and only devotes the half-instant
between the flying of his legs into the air and the
descent of his body upon the ice, to a rapid act
of self-preservation, in so ordering his fall that
the fleshiest portions of his frame and not the
more bony angles shall sustain the full force
of the impending crash. This is perfect
wisdom, and, in carrying it out, he will find the
advice of Sancho Panza, on the best means of
enduring a blanket-tossing, of incalculable
service. "If such mishaps do come," he says,
"there is nothing to be done but to shrug up
one's shoulders, hold one's breath, shut one's
eyes, and let oneself go whither fortune and
the blanket please to toss one."