“‘Lulu,’ who was in reality a man disguised as a woman, was shot 25 feeet up into the air to a trapeze by a powerful spring built into the floor at New York’s Niblo’s Garden in 1873.” ‘Lulu’ was one of three famous early cannon acts (Hoh, 1990, p. 177).
http://iath.virginia.edu/cocoon/circus/xml