JUST SUPPOSING.

Northland Age, Volume IV, Issue 42, 22 June 1908, Page 7

JUST SUPPOSING.

+ WHEN THE PRACTICAL AIRSHIP IS AN ACTUAL FACT. There is very little doubt that the airship is an accomplished fact. What i boots a year or two when time is flying as swiftly as it does nowadays ?" But has anyone considered the new j dangers that will follow in the wake iof the new machines ? Does anyone j imagine that life for him will be the old, carefree existence that it has been for most of us ; that when the air is filled with iron and steel and wood, man will go Jiis way unheeding upper ether as of old. * Of course, in the very nature of things, the first to equip themselves with aerial racers will be the reckless devils who now run gasoline juggernauts cm our highways. Is it not easy to imagine what they will do when they get up. in the air ? Will life on the surface of the earth have any semblance of safety while "white eagles” and "red hawks" are careering in upper air, spilling out tools, and now and then an occupant ? In these pleasant days, if a man is walking about Melbourne or Sydney all he has to think of are the the trams, the motor- cycles, the ordinary wheels, the automobiles, the dear old horse cars, and other horse-drawn vehicles, including the fire engines and the ambulances. If he is alert and spry his chance of life is as good as that of a soldier in a secondary skirmish. His adversaries are all on the level, so to speak, and he can see what is coming without raising his eyes to heaven, a thing that mankind fell out qf the habit of doing ages ago.

But with the upper air full of ships full of people, and many of the reople full of the intoxication born of free life in the void, why, I would not write any pedestrian’s insurance without charging a prohibitive premium.

Let us suppose two irresponsibles in an airship.

"Hand me that wrench, Bill. There's something the matter with this nut, and 1 want to take it off. Look out ! Gee ! you just jnissed hitting that chimney. -Can't you steer ? O, you careless idiot ! What did you drop that wrench for ? It struck the north light in that studio building. Let’s get away quick. I’ll bet that you’ve killed the artist at work—to say nothing of losing the only wrench we have. Hello, did you see that ? An- old chap fell out of that pink machine, and I'm blamed if he didn’t grab the spire of Grace Church, and there he is !"• "Shall we rescue him ?”

"I came near finding it on my head and if you were in a balloqn, instead of an airship, I'd put you out of commission. Confound you all ! Life isn't worth living since you left the highways.”

"Rescue nothing. What’s the matter with his own people doing it ?’’ "Well, I’m going down after that wrench. I don’t see-any commotion around the studiq building. Guess we didn’t kill any one." The airship turns, goes back, drops until it is about five feet above the ground-glass north light, and then the man who dropped the wrench, j making a cone of his hands calls through the hole—- " Say, you artist belqw there, did you hear anything drop ?" A moment later a shylight is openled, and an excited man in a blue j blouse makes his appearance. "Did you drop that wrench ?" "Yes, awfully sorry. Did you find it?”

‘Let's have the wrench, that’s a good fellow.”—“The Century.”