ENGLAND’S AERIAL WARSHIP.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2056, 6 December 1907, Page 3

ENGLAND’S AERIAL WARSHIP.

REFLECTIONS BY A “MAN FROM GISBORNE.” (Contributed to “Times.”) “ ’V’yer ever seen a airship,” says tho cheery conductor excitedly, poking Iris head into tho bus. “Eh?” grunts tho weedy individual addressed, with a dull stare. “ ’V’yer ever seen a airship” .is repeated with emphasis. Tho weedy ono doubtingly screws his long neck round and out, subsiding thereafter satisfied, and even beaming. The Mail from/- Gisborne thereupon decides to look out also just to humor tho joke. At first he notices nothing but the high sunlit roofs and that vista down Fleet Street that his soul lovetli, till, looking right above him, bright and translucent in the soft sunlight pale amber and white against the milky blue high, high above tho great jumble of roofs, drives steadily forward the great war airship in tho full gaze of staring London. Quickly sho goes, accurately directed, with a whirring beat of her two paddles till File buildings hide her as she makes the domes' of St. Paul’s. It is amazing, it is delightful, it is even a little terrible. So high, so alone, so independent of earth,’ and yet its- existence so bound up with that of the packed millions beneath it. So shining, so light, so beautiful even, and jet so heavy with possible developments of change and maybo of horror. Fleet Street at noon, is no place wherein to analyse feelings. But the wild thrill of excitement that one does feel is almost painful in its intensity. “I’d give my head to be in her,” says tho Man from Gisborne. “I’d a jolly lot sooner be hero,” replies tho weedy stranger. •Rounding St. Paul’s she came slowly back above the Thames, pitching and making rather heavy weather of it, but always splendidly head on to tho wind. The gaiping crowd in Trafalgar fhjuare saw. her 'Slowly edging away ■south, a shape of darker and darker grey, towards Clapham Common, where she hovered for a time, till it was decided to land at the Crystal Palace. She had come from Aidershot,, and’had the weather continued good sho could easily have got back, hut it was deemed safer to come down and wait till the wind should ■abater ■Even over tire open country the sight of such a portent would have set almost anyone to wondering, thinking, and’dreaming. But to one who has lived much alone in 1 sparsely-peopled country, how much more keen, how almost intoxicating, is any strong feeling shared with present and visible thousands. dt was an hour not to bo forgotten. London was gazing in wondering satisfaction; staring into the sky were waiters and War Office magnates, club men and seedy loafers, fine ladies and flower girls, policemen and guttersnipes, all eagerly watching those two little figures under tlic’r long amber gas bubble. Wliat sport 1 What true spoilt for these two after their months of ted’ous work, this flight with their perfected machine 1 Their signalling to the motor full of sappers that pursued, their pause over the War Office, their successful rounding of St. Paul's, and their safe and exactly accomplished landing at a carefully selected snot 1

Splendid and deJigliitful 1 But there comes the thought: Supposing it were war time and tills the encmv’s ship P