An old gentleman in Guilsborough had an extremely narrow escape. Being
warned on no account to practise flying in the house or garden, lest
his grandchildren should see him and want to do the same, he retired
to the seclusion of an old, disused and dilapidated coach house. Here,
in the upper storey, he practised by the hour together. He climbed on
to a stool which he had taken there for the purpose, and when he
fancied he had acquired the right amount of concentration, he sprang
into the air, arriving, presumably through want of will power, on the
floor. For two whole days he practised--bump--bump--bump--and the more
he bumped, the more he persevered. At last, however, the floor gave
way, and with loud cries of "I will! I will!" he fell on the ground
floor, ten feet below! He was unable to go on experimenting, owing to
a broken leg and a fractured collar-bone.
In Aylsham, Norfolk, there had been a perfect epidemic among the
children for trying aeronic gravity. Rudolph Crabbe, aged five, after
listening to an account of the performances at the Modern Sorcery
Company's Hall, which his father had read aloud, sprang off the
dining-room table crying out "I will fly! I will stay in the air."
Fortunately, he fell on the tabby cat, which somewhat broke the shock
of concussion, and he escaped unhurt.
In College Road, Clifton, Bristol, an octogenarian thinking he would
add novelty to the Jubilee celebrations at the College, leaped off the
roof of his house, crying, "I'll fly over the Close! I will fly over
the Close!"--and broke his neck.
In St. Ives, Cornwall, where the treatment of animals is none too
humane, a fisher-boy threw a visitor's Pomeranian over the Malakoff
saying, "You shall fly! You shall remain in the air;" whilst at Bath a
girl of ten, snatching her baby brother from the perambulator, leaped
over Beechen Cliff, calling out, "We will fly together! We will fly
together!"
These are only a few of the many similar cases Shiel read in the
paper, and which he narrated afterwards to Gladys Martin.
"I am quite convinced," Gladys said, "that Kelson does his flying
through supernatural agency. His assertion that it can be done through
mere will power, is sheer humbug. It wouldn't be a bad idea to consult
a clairvoyant. What do you think?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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