96 NETHER LOCHABER. 



said of Maharbal's suggestion to push on to the capture of the 

 Capitol after the battle of Cannae. In the first place it is allowed 

 on all hands that a few months at most, probably a few weeks, 

 must decide the fate of Paris one way or other, while a hawk, to be 

 employed as proposed, requires years of carefullest training ere it 

 can be depended upon as an aerial cruiser in any way subject to 

 human control, nor, even if it were otherwise, could a sufficient 

 number of falcons for the purpose be procured in Europe or else- 

 where. Such an attempt at an aerial blockade must prove a failure. 

 Even from a well-trained hawk, under the most favourable circum- 

 stances, a carrier pigeon ought to be able in nine cases out of ten to 

 make good its escape by reason of the velocity and altitude of its 

 flight. Depend upon it that in all time to come ballooning and 

 pigeon carrying will be employed by a besieged city, as Paris 

 employs them now ; and while gas can be had to inflate a balloon, 

 and a carrier-pigeon is available, there is nothing that a besieging 

 force can do to prevent the constant voyaging of such aerial 

 messengers. One result of this war will be that carrier pigeons 

 will be bred in larger numbers, and more highly valued than ever 

 — carrier pigeon dovecots in each city at the public expense — while 

 aerial navigation by means of balloons, having lost much of its 

 terrors, wUl more and more become a common and every-day mode 

 of locomotion. There is an " Aeronautical Society " in England, 

 which boasts the names of many distinguished men on its roU of 

 members, but which, nevertheless, couldn't in twenty years have 

 done so much for aerial navigation as the Franco-Prussian war has 

 done in little more than a month. Most people, by the way, have 

 been disgusted with the King of Prussia's repeated appeals for 

 Divine aid and pretended recognition of Divine guidance, whUe 

 wading at the head of his forces knee-deep in a marc magnum of 

 bloodshed and carnage from the Rhine to the Seine. One anecdote, 

 apropos of a king's protended piety and close alliance with the 



