Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-06-01

possible between 800 and LOO yards, but
equilibrium was something impossible In
the hygrometric state of the air of rain
storm.
Could any one on earth have looked up
at them the "Limousin" would have seemed
to pass overhead in falling slant-iike
bodice-now, already, it would be out OF
sight!
They were part of the storm itself, doing
far more than fifty miles an hour In awful
zig -zags, in terrific slants to and away
from earth, as the balloon-envelope became
more less rain-soaked and heavy. Yet
its daring occupants felt no motion. Only
when the rain slashed their faces like
whip they felt that they were going.
They did not know where they were. At
10 o'clock at night, however: they saw
them. They were passing over the great
foundries of Charleroi, in Belgium.
More blackness-and more flames. Now
they were passive above the equally great
FORCES and rolling mills of Dussendorf, in
Germany!
They must have passed the Rhine about
| midnight and four hours later, in the
bieary dawn, they saw they were over the
Baltic.
1t was a moment quite worthy of practice
for the great lakes. The ,'Limousn," cubing
only 200 yards originally, had lost great
deal of gas in the titantic ZigZags or the
night. 1t was heavy from being water
soaked. There remained only enough bal
last for a few maneuvers-wet-storm pal
looming is wasteful equally of gas and bal
last. And they were so low that their
guide ropes slashed the water.
What they would have done had it been
over Lake Erie they do not say, but beyond
them lay the Isle of Rugen, itself cut up
into. hundred little arms of the Baltic.
On the isle also they saw small fringe
of forest. Here was excellent practice. AS
isle and forest came dashing toward them
so it looks from balloon in a storm-they
threw their last remaining ballast to Jump
over the treetops, pulled the ripcord in
stantly, and came down with an apocalyptic
bump!
The drag that followed was not muir
derous, however. They had used the fringe
of forest scientifically. Falling to leeward
of it, the worst of the wind was cut off
broken finger and NJ. Leblanc a cut face
and ravaged ear. A photograph of the
car, taken as it lay. discloses that the soft
plowed earth proved a good friend to them;
while a second, of the isle as the balloon
approa ched it, shows the delicate calcula-
ton of landing to leeward of that fringe of
forest.
Give New Men a chance.
If it be asked why Leblanc was chosen
for St. Louis instead of one of the older
regulations, say, Jacques Faure or Castilion
de Saint-Victor, and why they made Gas
nier his running mate instead of Juchmes,
de La Vaulx or Balsan, it is not only the
clubs well-known principle of giving newer
men a chance for reputation. No, sporting
nerve and stamina, at least for Frenchmen,
have their stimulating causes and their
hour: even the great Napoleon slept too
late before Waterloo; and if the Paris Aero
Club. burning to win back the cup, mas
chosen two champions whose names you
never heard, do not imagine Frances
chances will be any the less for it! ]
You could not get two men SO much
alike and yet so Numerically different
from each other as Alfred Leblanc and
Rene Cashier. Leblanc is one of the ex-
traordinary mixed sporting -and-industrial
set Of Paris that made the automobile.
transformed spherical ballooning and is
now attacking the flying machine problem
in the simple famous gesture of gentle
men joining hands with artisans"
When his father died suddenly some
years ago, the youth of nineteen did not
hesitate to Immediately take on his shout
ders the technical management of the Lee
blanc foundries and rolling mills; and ever
since, like other Parisians of his kind, he
has been doing what neither American nor
English business men imagine possible-to
lead a life of foremost sporting activity
concurrently with clear-headed business
competition.
Business men at home may be glad to
know how a confrere like Leblanc passes
his day. At $50 am. he is speeding in
swift auto to the Aero Clubs Flylngma-
chine Park not the Balloon Park at ST.
Cloud. to the trial of some aeroplane
detail. At $50 he is debating his cor
respondence at the office; and until noon
it is the rolling mills He takes two hours
Automobile Club, where he will also meet
and talk mixed sport and business with a
| number of his kind; you.s everybody in
the high Paris manufacturing world be-
longs to the Automobile sClub. At $50 he
is back to his office. At he is either in
balloon for two hours before dinner-the
dinner to be taken where he lands-or in
an automobile bound to see some aeroplane
trial. At $50 pm. he is in bed. There's
Paris life of one kind. More men lead it
than you would imagine.
Rene Cashier, on the other hand. be-
longs to the world of d'Oultremont de La
rest-rich young Frenchmen born to idle
ness and amusement Look through the
Tout-Paris and you will that every
mothers son of them saw light in an an
cestral chateau.
Cashier and his brother Pierre were born
in the Chateau of Bouchemaine in Anjou.
First they gave themselves up to foot
ball. puglism and the cult of horses
Then Rene went in for deep-sea yachting.
In the port of Nantes he built sailing craft
that took him to the Indian ocean and the
waters of Indo-China. Then he had a
steam yacht from the Clyde in which he
did the South Pacific
Returning to France, he took up the
automobile, which his brother Pierre had
followed from its shaky, noisy beginning.
The twoo became road-scorchers in that
generous France that surprised the world
by giving up her highways to the out
rageous exploits Of a thousand reckless
sports, in the name of the industrial inter
eSts of Paris and Lyons
The scorching is now more. The wild
triumph is stated; and French chivalry to-
ward the weak has tossed the hot men,
bers up into the cool solitudes of the
upper atmosphere.
Seeking Excitement.
Today they balloon sports for ex-
citement. keeping their autos for honest
touring with their wives and sweethearts.
With Ernest Zens another Aero Club en-
thusast, the Cashier brothers are con-
structing a motor-aeroplane-to be expert
mented over their broad acres of Bouche-
maine; and Rene only yesterday astonish-
ed Paris society by first reckessly risking
and then gallan saving the life of a