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Otago Daily Times, Issue 21541, 13 January 1932, Page 10

Long popular in Europe, the thrilling sport of balloon-jumping has recently gained followers in the United States. Probably the youngest of American bal-loon-jumpers is four-year-bid Billy Crawford, of Cleveland, Ohio. Sitting in a harness below a diminutive balloon, with its buoyancy regulated until it is just 11b less than his own weight, he can make leape 40ft and 50ft high. A tether is attached to his jumping balloon for safety. Older balloon-jumpers, using untethered balloons, are able to leap prodigious distances across country, and to jump over houses and trees much ae if they were wearing seven-league boots. Canon Elliot, vicar of Bolton, Lancashire, who has recently returned from a nursing home, where he underwent a minor operation, admits in his parish magazine that he found the actual moment of pain a very difficult matter. “ I tried very hard to find some way of meeting this,” Mr Elliot said, “ but I never found anything better than ‘ Wow-000-wow and there is no great harm in this if it gives a momentary relief to the feelings. . . . I had an idea that it would be useful to find something with a tune to it to sing at the moment of pain; but I never could find the right tune.”