3 May 2005
David Blaine, please take note
From my "Well, Duh!" Page-a-day Andrews McMeel calendar for yesterday:
In 1841, England's greatest daredevil, Samuel Scott, performed stunt acrobatics while hanging by a rope with the noose around his neck from London's Waterloo Bridge. One day the noose slipped. Scott strangled to death on the bridge while the audience cheered, assuming it was part of the act.
Well, that's what the calendar says. I haven't found any corroborating evidence (or really anything at all about this so-called 'greatest daredevil' other than somebody else's diary transcribing this very same paragraph, albeit without attribution) or any evidence that doesn't corroborate.
Ten minutes in Lexis-Nexis yielded nothing about the guy.
There's apparently a book by Lou Harry entitled Strange Philadelphia that supposedly mentions "Samuel Scott's Last Leap (1841)". Is there anybody out there in Philly (or with access to the Pennsylvania libraries) that could see what this is all about? Inquiring minds must know.
Inquiring minds might also want to know why the writing on the calendar is so horrible, with bad prepositional phrases and other poor sentence structure. However, inquiring minds really just want to debunk, not proofread.
9 comments on David Blaine, please take note
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Sounds like a request for the lazyweb!
answers.com might help, though the initial results do not seem to be the Samuel Scott you seek.
Hmm...the Waterloo Bridge is not in Philly.... I think it's something made up. But you're likely to believe it, right?
Hmmm... Thanks, Lara. It's entirely possible the whole thing's made up.
Perhaps just the bridge is wrong, though? Inquiring minds, inquiring minds!
Why Philly? I thought it said London.
Okay, if anybody knows anything about London and this Sam Scott fellow, please feel free to chime in too.
I asked a Brit. The bridge is real. http://www.victorianlondon.org/thames/waterloobridge.htm No info on this particular Samuel Scott, though.
I came back for an update..... what's the story? :)
I have not yet given up!
Check it out.
Came across your blog through x-ref back from my site ... you have it right ... Mr. Scott died on January 11th, 1841. He was known as "The American Diver", though probably British. His last words before doing the noose trick were "Now I'll show you once more how to dance upon air before I dive." Unfortunately he never completed the trick - which was principally about diving into the Thames. An unconcerned friend reportedly said, "Oh, he has not hung half his time yet"; he was dead when they finally cut him down from the rope. That's entertainment. (it's 100% genuine, reported in the Times the following day ... I may well add the transcript to my site shortly!)