Litchfield enquirer., 1874-09-17

M OrSay. foTiHd the aarlaI ship '.Sau- sage m process Of inRation, with her car prone to the ground, and a score or so of men holding her down by means of ropes, Khiie she was being slowly filled with am blent air by the officials from the gas
 works. There was crowd of curious spectators surrounding the machine; but l did not hear that any adventurous gen.
 t.emen Of the genus swell had propose l t. invest five gnineas apiece for deck pas
 stges oil boari, or rather on basket, the l sSansaSe-' 4 lord had half promised to
 come, but he didn't show. A cornet and
 sEb-ieutenant Ill the Life Guards had act
 ually disbursed an instalment of the pas
 sage money; but he sent word from Knightsbridge barracks to say that he
 vas detained by the calls of duty, and paid forfeit. 4 little French actress, ca 1 loled by the facetlous blandishments of
 Soyer, had declared "Vta! .je me risque
 dams ce aaachin-la," " and had half stepped l into the car, when her heart failed her.
 The inventor himself, who was present, l rapt Tn admiration of his queer contri- this time. Nobody, indeed, seemed to be going save the professional aeronaut-a | little wiry old man with a white brard,
 who looked as though he had been sai- lof-and his assistant, who might have
 been q gasftter, or journeyman carpen- ter, or check-taker, or anything you please to mention. I don't think he knew much about ballooning But the machine itself had become by this time (six in the afternoon) fully inflated; the big sausage body was 'ioggulating, ,. as the Americans
 have 1t, in the air, and straining at the cords, and making the wicker-work of the
 car creak as though impatient to be free; and the crowd both inside and outside the gates (whence the Sausage was plain yisible) of the Symposium were growing eager for the start. At this conjunture, Soyer asked me if I would like to go. Now 1t happened that although had nev- CT made an ascent, was acquainted with most of the foremost seronauts of the day, Charles Green. Mrs. Graham, Hampton, Gale. and others,--and that I had long since acquired considerable knowledge, practical as we'll as theoretical, of the con struction of balloons. In particular, for poor MT. Gale-who had formerly been a lieutenant in the Coastguard, who had been before that an actor in the United States, where he had acquired considera- bie celebrity by his performance of Ma zeppa, and who was one of the bravest and most unfortunate men I ever met wlth*-I had not only written series of lectures on arostation, but had gone about the provinces with him, helping him to deliver them. The lectures were most brilliant failures. Moreover, I had drawn some hundreds of diagrams, prov ing to demonstration (Our own; although 1 am afraid that the late Professor Euclid would not have lndorsed our conclusions) that aerial navigation was as easy as lying, and that an aerial machine it had wings and taiD capable of taking up regiment of grenadlers was simply question of cap- ital Finally, I had concocted with Gale scheme for fitting up Greenland whaler with gas apparatus, and couple of bal looms well greased with mercurial oint- ment to obviate their freezing, and mak- ing sscaptive" ascents in the arctic regions for the the purpose of deserving whether ifs5oEn Frankfin's expedition might not be concealed behind some intervening iceberg. For many months did we poster the British government, the nobility and gentry, and the conductors of the public press, with the. details of this scheme with letters, prospectuses, and petitions. Of course the unhappy lieutenant was pooh-pOohed by the Board Amirality, civ lilly dropped by the press, and derided by Pmch. The only parsonage, I remem- Der, who deigned to take any serious mo- tice of the proposal was the late Prince Consort. To his sagacious and reflective mind 1t probably occurred that the plan was not quite so insane a one as 1t seem- ed on cursOry examination to be. At all events, Prince Albert askedIfor 'saddition- al plans and particulars" but am afraid we rather overdid things in the way of re- ply, by launching on his Royal Highness about half 8 hundredweight of printed and written matter, and diagrams execu- ted In flaming colors on the stoutest car tridge-paper. I wonder where those works of art are now. Be it as it may, we heard no more from Buckingham Pal ace.
 Nevertheless, although I might have pleaded two or three reasons, or rather excuses, for committing myself to an act of pure foolhardiness, there were many more reasons which, had been supersti- tiously minded, might have impelled me to leave the clouds unexplored. Poor Gale, as have mentioned in note, had met with horrible death in France in 1850. During the early part of 1851 there had been quite an epidemic of bal loon accidents. Two young aronauts whom I knew had been smashed within a fortnight: and Albert Smith, whom I greatly loved and esteemed, had been within an ace of losing his life in falling from the car of balloon on some scaffold- poles. Thus on my mental line of rail- way the changer" signal was displayed very plainly indeed but I was young and foolish, and endowed neither with super ~ks I'M
 first is often an excellent substitute for the last.) So said that would go. My brother. who was accustomed to my hay ing my own way, let me have 1t. Soyer was unable to grant me free pass for the skyey relms since the ballon was worked as the inventors own speculation. and as sending and descending with charg- es for gas and manual labor, carting the dead body of the machine. when his gas eous soul has expired, to the nearest rail- way station, and the continges of damages to property-are somewhat expensive mat ters. Withal the inventor in considera- tion of my being connected with the press" (with which I had at the time about as much connection as a call-boy on board a penny steamer has with an ironclad man-of-war), agreed to take me up at ''cost price" which he opined, bar ring accidents, would not exceed couple of pounds. A minute afterwards had shaken hands with half dozen friends, and had elambered into the car. Then there was cry of .Let go!" and the crowd cheered-they would have been pleasurably excited had we been going to be hanged-the band in an adjacent pavil- ion struck up ''See, the conquering hero comes" Ia slightly inappropriate melody, seeing that we were departing, and not arriving), and up we went.
 So many ladies and gentleman have made ''captive" and s'free" balloon ascents within the last few years, that it would simply be an act of impertinence on my part to describe minately the phenomena of an ascents from the neighborhood of London: how you do not at first appear to sHe had eleven children, and all that he de- rived from his employment as an aronaut was salary of 8 pound a week from the speculative proprietors of the balloon, in which he was ex- peeled, te risk his life as many times the course of every season as occasion required. Ultimate ly he got little money; crossed the channel in balloon; made several accents from the neigh | I~~U -rFlF< <& nMS -~1 n