Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. IX.—February, 1851.—Vol. II.Various
General
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. IX.—February, 1851.—Vol. II.
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
the English capital were shocked at the announcement; and the secretary
of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals made application
on the 30th of July to the magistrates to put a stop to the ascent. A
case of interference not having been made out to the satisfaction of the
magistrates, Mr. Green next day started on his journey to the clouds
mounted on a pony. It was put in the car--a plan more humane than that
of M. Poitevin, who suspended his pony in the air. But the whole affair
was a miserably poor one, and well fitted to bring all such experiments
into contempt. The nag was not larger than an under-sized Newfoundland
dog; and what made the thing more ridiculous still, the poor
creature--which, by the way, had its eyes bandaged, and was strongly
tied by cords to the network of the balloon--was so feeble that, on
mounting it, Mr. Green had to sustain his own weight by a pile of sand
bags placed on either side. This sham equestrian excursion through the
air appears to have generally disappointed onlookers, and pony
ascensions have not been attempted a second time in England. In France
they have met with greater favor. They have been repeated by M. Poitevin
and others in the presence of immense multitudes: and it should not be
passed over without remark, as one proof among others of what the
animals suffer, and, consequently, of the cruelty of the practice, that,
in some of these instances, blood flowed from their ears and nostrils.
That the practice is dangerous to the aeronaut as well as cruel to the
animal, has been the judgment of all reflecting men from the first; and
the late melancholy fate of Lieutenant Gale, an English, naval officer,
who ascended from the Hippodrome of Vincennes, near Bordeaux, on
Sabbath--a very unsuitable day, surely, for such exhibitions--the 8th of
September last, mounted on a horse, which was suspended beneath the car
of the balloon by girths passed under its body, reads a lesson to which
it would be wise to listen. By the aid of several peasants who were in
the fields, he effected his descent without any accident to himself or
the horse; but, having unfastened the animal, he again rose into the
air, and was afterward found dead in a field about a mile from the place
where the balloon made its second descent. That this dreadful close of
the aeronautic career of Mr. Gale, which he commenced only in 1848, will
serve as a warning to this reckless class of adventurers, we hardly
anticipate. That it will put a stop to such fool-hardy and hazardous
exhibitions, by bringing them into disrepute with the idle multitude, is
what we as little expect. So long as men are found sufficiently daring
to run the risk, there will not be wanting crowds abundantly ready to
pay down their money, and gaze upon the spectacle with a stupid
admiration.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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