11ORSE-13ALLCONING. , • = -
A eau is made upongovernments to in down such exhibitions as that of Mr. ei,pony excursions in balloon ; the fatal result having opened the jiil4ie,tmind to the useleeeness and worthless- ness of such displays, „But the demand iii,11,9t less unreasonable than the occasion for*. . If governments ere.to interfere in checking the amusements of the people whenever they become silly or riskful, without being directly destructive of life, we invite that kind of " paternal go- vernment' which is so oppressive and mischievous in some Conti- nental states. In horse-ballooning, the risk to life is not really greater than that incurred in other exhibitions, such as tight-rope dancing; and in some amusements even the enjoyers share the risk, as in hunting. If the silliness and not the danger is the rule of objection, you must authorize the police to arrest the players at puss-in-the-corner or push-pin. You must employ the police also to watch over performers in order that they do not confuse them- selves with too much stimulant.
Besides, the public that calls out for these exhibitions to be put down is itself the occasion of the exhibitions' by flocking to wit- ness them. Neither Green nor Gale would have followed Poite- vin's silly example, if the sillier public had not flocked to see Poitevin make an ass of himself, by mounting a wingless Pegasus,, tied and hoodwinked, and hanging helpless like the "golden fleece" at a hosier's door.
The true way to cheek such exhibitions is to achieve a thorough comprehension clf their nbsurdity. It is not the risk that makes them absurd, nor altogether the "uselessness" of the risk, since we admire feats of daring for the sake of the daring; which it is in- deed a most useful quality to cultivate. But this was a kind of risk in which daring could be of no avail, but only a stupid inert indiffereney. A bound and dangling pony ma]ces-a very un- comfortable and unsafe seat under a balloon ; but to cultivate har- dihood in that shape cannot conduce to any form of manly energy, activity, or skill. Nor can it in the faintest degree conduce to im- provement in ballooning. It has nothing to do with that experi- mental sort of entertainment. The balloon in itself is full of risk, and only of some slight speculative utility ; still it may lead to some use—it illustrates human ingenuity, it has famished a few facts to science, and it is beautiful to look upon. The junction of a horse to a balloon is as ridiculously absurd as mounting the ma- rines on shipboard, or as Horace's famous exemplar ad evitandum, the junction of a fish's tail to the beautiful body of a woman. Now when once we perceive how tame is the danger, how senseless the experiment, how- utterly destructive of what is beautiful in the balloon, the public is far less likely to go to the spectacle than it would be if a meddlesome "Austrian" police were to promote the mounted aeronaut on his dangling steed into the persecuted cham- pion of "the rights of the freeborn Englishman " to "do -what he likes with his own," self included.
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