May. 3.
THE sincere congratulations and compliments of all Shanghai residents of all nationalities are extended to Lieut. Ferrarin and his skilful mechanic Cappannani on their safe arrival, and many warm wishes will be expressed that the kindly fates which have befriended them thus far will see them safely to their journey's end. It is hard to speak too highly of this wondrous achievement. As we watched the great aeroplane sail out of the western horizon, so sedately, so imperturbably, it was difficult to imagine that she could have come so many thousands of miles, and that in her graceful form we saw indeed the embodiment of the conquest of the air of which men have dreamed since the fabled days of Icarus. In other parts of the world men have become almost indifferent to these achievements. The crossing of the Atlantic by Hawker and Alcock, by the American N. C. 4 and twice by a British naval airship; the fight of Ross-Smith to Australia, and, in many respects the most wonderful thing of all, the now regular air mail between London and Paris—all these have accustomed Westerners to flying as an every-day affair. But we in China are off the beaten track; we live in a world which is still to vast numbers of the human race remote and mysterious; and Lieut. Ferrarin's arrival is an emblem of our linking up with the West such as no fast steamer or transcontinental train could typify. More than this, there are many who look to the aeroplane for the opening up of China with a reality for which we might wait long years by any other means. The comparative safety with which flying can already be accomplished must ere long lead. to a security as solid as that with which steamers travel, and a new generation will set out on the one kind of journey with as little concern as we undertake the other. Meanwhile, we who saw the Italian aviators arrive shall look back on that sunny May afternoon as an epoch such as the world has rarely seen.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.