Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1874 — Sailing by Kite Power. [ARTICLE]

Sailing by Kite Power.

The Springfield Union has the following account of an attempt to sail the Connecticut in a small boat drawn by a kite: “At last it was well mounted, and then, the breeze being just a little better than at right angles with their course, the little boat glided merrily into the ‘ teeth’’of the current and almost into the ‘teeth’of the wind. The steam ferryboat was passed with cheers. On, on .went the novel craft so successfully that its crew were almost beside themselves with delight and triumph, and but for the necessity of hugging the bottom of the boat and keeping every faculty fixed" on the management of rudder, paddle and keel as for their lives they would have danced a double-shuffle on the spot. Probably if the boat had had a more prominent keel or had the wind been a point or two more southerly nothing but the old toll-bridge would have stopped the unique voyage; but again, in spite of most deliberate and at the same time desperate efforts, the freshening westerly breeze drew them to the lee shore and close by the building of the New England Card and Paper Company at the foot of Broad street, in this city. The line caught in a talLjtree, and after repeated efforts to make a new start the kite was lowered awav over in a garden some hundreds of yards from the river, and secured without an injury from any of it? numerous bumpings sufficient to make a stitch necessary befbre another trip." ’... '■

Some people complain about their children being non-observing, but we’d like to see the child who won’t observe how the family pie is cut and who gets, the biggest piece.— Detroit Press.