Wonderful Balloon Ascents; Or, The Conquest of the Skies

While caricature was thus turning its irony upon the efforts of believers in the new idea, serious pamphlets were being written and published with the same object. One of these declares that the discovery is IMMORAL, I. Because since God has not given wings to man, it is impious to try to improve his works, and to encroach upon his rights as a Creator; 2. Because honour and virtue would be in continual danger, if balloons were permitted to descend, at all hours of the night, into gardens and close to windows; 3. Because, if the highway of the air were to remain open to all and sundry, the frontiers of nations would vanish, and property national and personal would be invaded, &c. We do not wish to gather together here the stones which critics threw against the new discovery, unaware all the time that these stones were falling upon their own heads. It is only fair to state that after the first ascents the public were often duped by pretending aeronauts, whose single aim was to sell their tickets, and who disappeared when the time came for ascending. The result of these frauds was that sometimes honest men were made to suffer as rogues. Even in our own day, when an ascent, seriously intended, fails to succeed, owing to some unforeseen circumstances, the public frequently manifests a decided ill-will to the aeronaut, who is perfectly honest, and only unfortunate. The famous ascent of the Abbes Miolan and Janninet, at the Luxembourg, may be cited as among the failures which suffered most from the satire of the time. Their immense balloon, constructed at great expense at the observatory, was expected to rise beyond the clouds, and a multitude, each of whom had paid dearly for his ticket, had assembled at the Luxembourg. The morning had been occupied in removing the balloon from the observatory to the place of ascent, and at midday the inflation of it began. The rays of a burning July sun--and one knows what that is in the Luxembourg in Paris--streamed down on the heads of the thousands of spectators. From six in the morning till four in the evening they had waited to see the unheard-of wonder; the ascent, however, was to be so imposing, that nothing could be lost by waiting for it. But at five in the afternoon the heavy machine was still