Chattan
ooga (TN)
TIMES
17 JAN 1910
AIRSHIP IS
CAPTURED
t Alighted Yesterday in the
Ninth Ward.
SQUIRE BASS AND OTHERS
PERPETRATED THE JOKE
With Other Small Boys He Fooled
People for Whole Week-Nothing
But Paper Balloons Sent Sky
ward for Fun
Airships, aeroplanes, dirigible balloons,
planes and aerial craft of all kinds.
must take a tumble in the minds of
Chattanoogans for the time being. Those
Things in the sky which thousands of
eople in this city and vicinity have
een accepting as the real, genuine all-
Wool and a yard wide. airship were not
real, airships at all. They were no more
han toys sent up as a practical joke..
The perpetrator was Squire Ed Bass
and some more of the small boys out in
Bouth Chattanooga...
The 'squire and a very few others
who must have been "on" have had lots
of fun. The gullibles whose name is:
egion, may have enjoyed the stunt, trio,
ut just how much they will appreciate
he hunior of the situation now remain
-th to be seen. It will depend hurgery
n the temperament of the victim. A
ke's a joke, but when the victim gets
rise the effect is more or less doubtful.
Donhtless, the joking 'squire's ears will
irn with an exceeding warmth today,
ecause of the many he so thoroughly
oled there will be some to express
hemselves plainly, forgetting the Sun-
y school lesson yesterday..
Murvier will out, doncherknow, and
her matters not as serious do, not
ways remain a mystery. The cat las
ratched and chewed her way clean out
the bag of the dirigible balloon busi-
. Truth once more reigns supreme.
d sits at the tiller of the aeroplane,
ring ousted the spirit of humor and.
"sity which has been steering the air-
ps all over the sky in the region
ndabout Chattanooga. The cat got
of the bag and the genus at the
-eting gear gave way to the truth
terday when a cigar-shaped paper
loon, some fifteen feet long and four
through, at the maximum, alighted
mly, peacefully, without shame or cir-
Tassment. In the neighborhood of the
th ward fire hall.
it was not long before the presence
he strange object was discovered by
the natives, and they began to congre-
gate.
There was much interest and amuse-
men manifested, coupled with a certain
form of admiration of whoever it was
who had succeeded in fooling the people
for so long. For it was very apparent.
that in the collapsed paper structure lay
the secret of the airships which had been
seen over the city.
Now, the good people of Highland Park
who saw the paper balloon and realized
its significance did not know who was
back of the joke. Even before the dis-
covery in Highland Park The Times had
learned the identity of the juveniles who
perpetrated the joke jand was preparing
to inform its readers on the subject.
Then word came that the inevitable
Ninth ward had come again to the fore
and had material evidence of the nature
of the airships which have been causing
80.much commotion and talk for the last
few days..
My, what people in a dry town will
see, and, seeing, what mountains they
will make out of, mole hills that come
into their line of vision. Chattanooga
can console itself in the knowledge that
other towns, dry like Chattanooga, have
been victimized lately in the matter of
sky-craft. Dry Knoxville has been a
zeein' airships lately. Dry. Huntsville
has been peering aloft to the detriment
of its necks and collars at strange craft
in the big dome.
Amid the commotion caused by the fre-
quent appearance of the what seemed to
be an airship with a strong liking for
this vicinity. 'Squire Bass and his fellow
conspirators have been saying nothing
and laughing up their sleeves at the
mystification of their townspeople: Like
Mr. Hyde, they have stood around
among the wondering victims and hear-
ing accounts of their Dr. Jekyll doings.
Squire Bass, arch-conspirator of them
all, perhaps had the biggest share of
amusement in this way. It was no un-
usual thing for him to hear people de-
scribe the airship in the minutest detail.
His amusement was in their gullibleness,
and the power of their optics. Some of
them declared that the craft was a bi-
plane and that they could plainly discern
the man at the steering gear, and even
hear the chug-chug of the machinery.
That so many people were successfully
deceived by the toy balloon was due to
optical delusion. Tricks which the eye
will play in certain circumstances are
certainly delusions and snares.
In reality a 14-foot affair, the little
balloon, perhaps a few hundred feet high,
looked like a monster affair. And, then,
too, like looking at the Pleiades, the
more, one looked the more there was to
The man in the rigging, and other
details described by some, were natural
consequences.
RCC.
Squire Bass joke was simply that and
nothing more-a practical joke. -It has
been the opinion of many that the al-
leged airship. or whatever it was, would
resolve itself finally into some sort of
an advertising dodge. But the worthy
squire has no brand of soap, panacea,
cigar or breakfast food to hoist upon a
purchasing public, so far, as known. The
craft which ambled into the camp of
the Highland Parkers yesterday bore no
advertisement. It was very inconsider
ate of that balloon to land in an
lightened community like Highland Park,
anyway. IInd It gone further the
squire's joke might have lasted longer.
But in the midst of thousands of wide-
awake and strenuous folk it could only.
result in discovery and limelight. It was
a case of "If we're discovered we're lost."
as 'Squire Bass, may have said...
en-
made i
Squire Bass balloon was not
lighter than air by the use of hot air
about the prison commissioner's job.
either. The balloon which landed among
the Parkites owed its powers: of navi
gation to the gases arising from a bunch
of waste soaked in somie, liquid, presum-
ably gasoline, kerosene, benzine, or
some other old sene, and ignited.
By perpetrating such a joke upon an
unsuspecting public, especially as
the
joke was so successful, Squire Bass lays
himself open to a variety of more or
Jess succulent and pithy flings. Any
tiine today it will be pertinent to eject
sarcasm and hitting sentences about the
airship man. There will be some to
sidy that he was trying to get high
enough up to get his grasp on the prison
commissioner plum. Others may hint
that he was looking around for more
love-smitten couples in order that he
might join their two lives in one, and
get a nice fee..
The balloons of the Bass persuasion
were sent up from the rear of Stong's
drug store, Main street. The forests,
mountains and streams of the vicinity
could probably divulge the landing place
of the others, the ones' turned loose be
fore that which opened the Ninth ward-
ers' eyes.