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Brooklyn Daily Eagle FRIDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 12. 4 0'CLOCK EDITION THE BALLOON - Successful inflation and Possible Ascension To-Night. - A Little Misunderstanding Between the Professors Happily Smooth Over-All the Arrangements Progressing Satisfactorily-The Ropes to be Cut Between Six and Seven O'clock- The Wind Favorably Blowing Landward-&e. - At half-past o'clock this morning, Prof. John Stiner rushed into the tent on the Capitoline ground and startled the sleeders in the balloon car with the cry-- "Here, get up, quick!" Thinking the balloon was on fire, Donaldson, Lunt and Charley Goodsell, the latter with his eyebrows standing on end with fright, shot out of the tent only to find everything quiet, the stars shining petcefully over their heads. "What the devil's the matter with you?" said Donaldson, pulling frantically, but in vain, at his eyelids, which had become hermetically sealed from want of sleep. "What's the matter--why, we've got to inflate the balloon." "How are you going to inflate the balloon--the gas man ain't here," said Goodsell. "I wish you'd lend a hand here," says Donaldson. "What's the matter with you?" "Why I can't get my peepers open." "Oh, is that all; I'll fix you;" and Lant made a break for the tent, and bringing out a marlinspike, and backed up by Stiner, succeeded in prying Donaldson's eyelids apart. "Good enough" said D., in delight. "Now I'll start them fellers in the house." And off he trotted, and in less than five minutes a gang of men, under Stiner's directions, were overhauling the air ship and fixing the neck on the pipe preparatory to letting on the gas. When the gas man arrived, about three o'clock, he was in no small degree disgusted at the little game that had been played on him. An hour's ESCAPE OF GAS from a six inch pipe is no joke, especially when there's no meter to figure from. A compromise was concluded on, by his offering to take 10,000 feet for what had been sent into the bag. At four o'clock the two telegraph poles were cut down, they being of no further use, the top of the balloon having reached the the height. When Donaldson smiled, and Weed looked pleased--and Lunt sung "A Life on the Ocean Wave," and Goodwill invited all hands to take--a walk to the pump and have a wash. At 9 o'clock there were 200,000 CUBIC FEET OF GAS in the big bag, and she stood 50 feet in the air. A crease was formed in the southwesterly side of the balloon, and fears were entertained that the marlin setting might cut into it with the strain. About 150 men were at work round the bag. Sandbags were anchored to the netting, and a man sat on each bag. As the balloon filled with gas, and rose, the bags are changed to points lower down the netting, and the balloon was thus firmly held in control. Around the neck of the bag, where the gas pipe was inserted, seven or eight men sat constantly overhauling the cloth and forcing the gas--which sometimes bulged up in the neck--into the main receptacle for it. Professor Stiner remarked that he was surprised at the strength exhibited by the balloon, considering the pulling and bauling it had been subjected to. At six o'clock in the morning Captain Lunt commenced work on the boat. It was rigged up with powerful stays and ropes, extending around and under it, and made ready for suspension to the concentrating ring, it having been determined to ABANDON THE CAR. Into the boat were packed provisions and water to the extent of 800 pounds, besides the nautical instruments, baggage bedding, etc., necessary for the navigators. During the final fitting out of the boat this forenoon, Capt. Lunt was interviews by several ladies, who were evidently interested in the good looking young navigator. "Are you going in that boat without any cover over your head at all?" "Certainly, madam, we'll have the balloon for a sunshade." "What a shame--don't you think so, Laura?" Laura had been levelling a pair of dark eyes at Capt. Lunt, thought it was, and intimated that she would be afraid. "Perfectly safe, I can assure you, madam," returned the gallant tar. "And you really expect to go to Europe in that balloon?" "Undoubtedly, madam; or if the balloon fail, we can go in the boat." "Go in the boat across the ocean," and the dark eyes extended with a pretty kind of hour. "Impossible." "Oh, no, it will only be a pleasant excursion on the water," and the young man turned away, while Laura, putting up her hand to smoother her soap locks, whispered to her friend that she thought he was "perfectly splendid". The Goodwill brothers gave orders this morning to exclude everybody from close proximity to the balloon, even newspaper reporters, and by way of example kept their own artist and reporter out among the crowd. Captain McLoughlin, of the Ninth Precinct has about 200 men and eleven sergeants under his command on the Capitoline field, keeping the crowds back, and preserving order generally. Large numbers of visitors arrived on the grounds--going and coming at 10 o'clock there were several hundred, and as the day advanced they increased in numbers. Professor Wise has not been seen for forty-eight hours--so Mr. Goodsell informed the EAGLE reporter. They sent word to him yesterday to be on hand this morning, and superintend the inflation of the bag but have heard or seen nothing of him since Wednesday. It is reported that he has gone to Chicago. The EAGLE reporter asked Captain Lunt if he thought the Professor would be on hand to-day. "Well, I don't know--if he should come up though and see this balloon inflated he'll be scared to death." The reporter asked Mr. Donaldson if he thought Professor Wise would go? Mr. D. smiled "sarcastically," and replied: "I have nothing to say." The general opinion among the public seems to be that Prof. Wise will not go, and that opinion is shared by those immediately connected with the expedition. A ROW. At 12 o'clock Prof. Wise, accompanied by his son, arrived on the ground, and, in attempting to pass under the rope of the outside of the inclosure, was roughly handled by Policeman No.413, who collard him, and would not give him a chance to tell who he was. As soon as the matter was settled, he and his son went toward the inner ring, in the immediate vicinity of the balloon, where Mr. Chas. Wise was roughly ordered out by the elder Goodwill. The Professor objected, and the police ejected them both, when Professor Wise, turning to Goodwill, remarked: "You have taken the responsibility of this business on your own shoulders--you may keep it." Mr. Chas E. Wise turned excitedly and cried out: "It shows what you are--you don't want me to expose the condition of your D------D ROTTON BALLOON, but I'll do it!" The EAGLE reporter asked Professor what the difficulty was, and that gentleman said that if they could not admit his son, who was a practised balloonist, to look at the balloon, they could not admit him. As they walked toward the gate, Mr. Chas. E. Wise informed the EAGLE reporter that he could "put his finger through the holes in the balloon," and that he, knowing the defects fo the bag, had expressed his opinion, consequently had been insulted by the Goodsells. He thought he had a perfect right to express an opinion, when his father was risking his life in such a rotten concern. He then said that the secret of the trouble with the Goodsells lay in the fact that they had ineffectually attempted to bribe him to get the publication fo a book on ballooning, which Prof. Wise had put in the hands of a Philadelphia publishing house before the publication fo the Graphic was ever thought of. The Goodsells had sent a man to Philadelphia to defame his character to the publishers in question. He intended to ventilate THIS GREAT SWINDLE from beginning to end. On arriving at the gate, followed by an edited crowd, Professor Wise turned, and, shaking his finger at Charles Goodwill, who stood near, said: "You cannot break down my character, sir--you, with a dozen Graphics at your back!" "We do not wish to do so, Professor Wise," answered Goodsell. "Yes, sir; you have." "No, sir--we have not." At this moment, Prof. Stiner came along, and said: "Gentlemen, come into the office, and don't stand wrangling in this crowd." "Yes, I want to talk with you--come in, Professor." The party went into the office, but as they are going in Goodwill turned to Chas. E. Wise and said, "You can't come in here!" "I want my son to go with me," said the Professor. "But I object, said Goodwill. Chas E. Wise became excited at the treatment he had undergone, and seizing his father's arm, said: "Come on father, let them and their d--d rotten balloon go to h--ll. If it goes up, it'll go A D--D LITTLE DISTANCE anyhow. They ain't off yet, either." A compromise was effected, and Professor Wise went into the office, while Charles E. Wise stayed out. the later gentleman informed the EAGLE reporter that one of the difficulties between the balloon builders and himself lay in the fact that they had sent him to Philadelphia to make a contract. The thought that he stayed in Philadelphia too long, and stopped a day out of his salary. When they offered him the balance, they said they thought "it was enough for him." "I wasn't in the habit of taking money in that way and I left," said he. "I saved them more money in the contract than all I ever got from them." MR. CHARLES GOODSELL gave his side of the story of the difficulty as follows: In the first place he denounces Mr. Charles E. Wise as a "gin guzzler," and a "dead beat" and states that he was employed by them, at the suggestion of his father Professor Wise, to superintend the construction of a valve for the balloon. He engaged to go to Hoe & Son's establishment for that purpose, but never went near the place, As regards his trip to Philadelphia, he went on a Friday and was to return on the following Monday, but he did not return til the next Thursday. On being asked what he was doing, he could not give a satisfactory answer, and they accordingly "docked" it out of his salary. He was consequently requested to leave their employment. "Since that time," said Charley Goodwill, "he has 'soured' on us." In reference to the trouble on the ground, Mr. Goodsell said he had a conversation with Professor Wise a couple of days ago, in which he said: "You know, Professor, that the other day you said to me that your orders in relation to many of the arrangements had been disregarded. I determined that in the matter of inflating the balloon your suggestions should be followed, and as you had said that you had rather Professor Stiner would inflate that balloon before any other man, I went to Donaldson and asked him if he had any objections to it, and he said no. I then engaged Professor Stiner, and told him I would pay him a HIGH PRICE to get the balloon off." "Last evening my brother and myself held a consultation and concluded to allow no one inside the inner ring, and especially Mr. Chas E. Wise. When ProfessorWise came along this morning, and was so roughly handled by the police officers, who didn't know him, he became excited; and when my brother stepped up to him and said politely, "Professor, Mr. Chs. Wise cannot come in here'--why, he went off angry and said he would not go. He told me, however, after talking the mater over that he would be ON HAND TO GO, if we wanted him at 3 o'clock." When the EAGLE reporter had left at two o'clock, the balloon was about THREE-FOURTHS FULL, and every prospect favorable for a start. Immense crowds are coming and going, and there must have been over 5,000 tickets sold at the time. - 4 O'CLOCK EDITION. EXTRA THE "GRAPHICS" DEFENCE. - PROF. WISE RE-STATES HIS CASE. - THE FULL TRUTH AT LAST. - THE "GRAPHICS" MISSTATEMENTS. - A PHILADELPHIAN VINDICATED. - The New York Daily Graphic, of yesterday, published what purported to be a full defence of its action in the balloon project, and making some very damaging assertions against Professor Wise. Convinced that many of the statements made were false, and believing thoroughly in the honesty and integrity of Professor Wise, a reporter of the EVENING HERALD was detailed this morning to interview the great aeronaut. Professor Wise received our reporter cordially, and on learning his object stated very clearly the exact facts in the case. Reporter--The Graphic states, Professor, that you preferred a cotton ballon. Professor--On the contrary, the cotton balloon was accepted because it was the cheapest, and the Goodsells did not want to expend the money necessary for a silk balloon. Reporter--The Graphic states that you are bound by contract to deliver lectures etc. Professor--Yes. A supplementary contract was drawn up. to take effect on the arrival of the balloon in England, by virtue of which I was to lecture on year, and to receive as compensation ten dollars per day for personal expenses, and one-fifth of the profits from the lectures. This last point, however, was not stated in the contract explicitly, through negligence in drawing up. By the original contract Mr. Donaldson and myself were to receive $2.50 per day for our services, and this point was also omitted expressly in the contract. Reporter--The Graphic states that you yourself selected the cloth for the balloon. Is that a fact? Professor--No. Donaldson and myself made the first election of cloths from the establishment of Jaffray & Co. The muslin selected for the large balloon was Atlantic Mills make, and the small balloon, Manches-
Transcription Notes:
There are a few typos in the original article that I didn't change while transcribing.
