The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-08-03


 have liked to If we only had had time" At this point remarked to Smith that Nielsen had told me bow, some when in Japan the had had meal all sitting in little parties around stoves with tables on top of them.
 That was in Kasumigaura," was the reply. We were the guests there of one of the big men of the town, who brought in his wife and all his realtiyes to meet us. Only very hons cred guests are taken into homes there.a Those little stoves, around which the hosts and the guests sit in small groups, have little ovens in which the food is cooked, and 1t is served im- mediately on the table above. The guests are waited on by. the members of the family. 1t is custom that is re- garded as "a sincere token of friend ship"
 Whole Town Proifd
 Needless to say, this little airport of Brough, on. the north bank of the Humbef, about 15 miles from Hull, is vastly proud of having. been selected as the American airmen's point of de- parture on the last stage of their world flight. The fact that it was such, by
 
 principal claim to renown, fort as far as am able to discover, the sole other outstanding point of interest in the history of the tiny place-whose main street consists of about a dozen little shops--is the fact that it is closely as- sociated with the career of Dick Fur pin, the highwayman, Sone of whose funk holes," so tradition relates, was the attic of the Green Dragon Inn, few miles away.
 It is now exactly four days since the world flyers, after what Lowell Smith described as ''just little joy ride from London" about 180 miles away, glided to earth here and got rousing welcome from the assembled inhabitants of Brough (who only number 1,500 all told) the heads and staff of the Black burn Aeroplane company, and a size able crowd of visitors, including several Royal Flying Corps pilots, who had come to fly newly constructed Darts to their respective airdromes.
 One of Lieutenant Wade's first acts on landing was to deliver Mrs. Black burn, wife of the head of the company, to whom the overhaul of the world cruisers has been entrusted, a letter that he had brought to her all the way from Bagdad, the writer being a brother of hers who is stationed there.
 The flyers, while here, have had an nncommonly silicitious host in Robert Blackburn, head of the big organization that builds planes for England. When reached Brough by train, a few hours after the arrival of the ayiators, he was showing them over the airplane sheds, one of the sights of which is the old monoplane Antoinette, the now derelict machine that was used by La tham, the first flyer to attempt the channel crossing. The American boys were hugely amused by Blackburn's s description of the sensation which this early ''bird" created at Blackpool in 1909, by actually flying in 40-mile an hour wind!
 Everybody here has been impressed, not least the British flying officers, by the apparent tirelessness of the six world flyers, who have been working ten hours a day in the airplane sheds ever since they arrived. On their first evening here an informal dinner, fol- lowed by a dance was given in honor of the flyers by Mir. Blackburn at the little Aero club maintained by the firm for the members of its staff. But the Americans were up at six next morning and at work in the airplane sheds a few minutes after seven.
 Makes Fine Impression
 Responding to the toast of the fly ers' healths, proposed by Robert Black burn at the close of the. complimentary dinner, Lowell Smith, in a modest speech which made fine impression, declared that he and his companions, in making what he described as tour little flight" were trying to do some thing, not for America alone, but for the whole world.
 l asked him today what he considered the main significance of the flight.
 "It will have demonstrated, when completed" he said, t''that commercial aviation, right around the globe, is perfectly practicable, and only needs development. The Pacific flight by way of the Kurile and Aleutian Islands probably always will be a pretty tough proposition at any time of the year, but our experience has shown that regular air mail and passenger service from London to Tokyo can be establish ed and maintained with little or no diff ficulty and no more relative danger than land service.
 "The time, I'm convinced, isn't so far distant when anybody will be able to make an eight or ten thousand mile journey without changing planes. As commercial aviation. is developed, it