Ella Zuila (died 1926) was the most famous Australian public entertainer of her time. Ella didn't just walk the wire; she cycled it; wheeled a child over it in a barrow; walked it in stilts and with a full-body blindfold, and, on one memorable occasion, hung from it by her knees to catch her fired-out-of-a-cannon husband, George Royal. Her career came to a tragic end in Dublin, on August 26, 1904, when she and her tricycle fell off the high wire in the Round Room of the Rotunda. There was no safety net, and she was too badly injured ever to perform again. She died in 1926.

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Ella Zuila, Australian Daredevil

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