lodging a cord on the apex, contrives by its means to reach the top
without the trouble of scaffolding. No fragility, no displacement of
stones, no leaning from the perpendicular, frightens Steeple Jack. He is
as bold as his namesake Jack-the-Giant-Killer, and does as wonderful
things. At Dunfermline, not long ago, when the top of the spire was in
so crazy a state that the people in the street gave it a wide berth as
they passed, he swung himself up without hesitation, and set everything
to rights. At the moment we write his cord is seen stretched from the
tall, slim, and elegant spire of the Assembly Hall in Edinburgh, which
is to receive through his agency a lightning-conductor; and Jack only
waits the subsidence of a gale of wind to glide up that filmy rope like
a spider. He is altogether a strange boy, Steeple Jack. Nobody knows
where he roosts upon the earth, if he roosts anywhere at all. The last
time there was occasion for his services, this advertisement appeared in
the _Scotsman_: 'Steeple Jack is wanted at such a place immediately'--and
immediately Steeple Jack became visible.

In 1827 the child's toy was put to a very remarkable use by one Master
George Pocock. This clever little fellow observed that his kite
sometimes gave him a very strong pull, and it occurred to him that if
made large enough it might be able to pull something else. In fact, he
at length yoked a pair of large kites to a carriage, and travelled in it
from Bristol to London, distancing in grand style every other conveyance
on the road. A twelve-foot kite, it appears, in a moderate breeze, has a
one-man power of draught, and when the wind is brisker, a force equal to
200 lbs. The force in a rather high wind is as the squares of the
lengths; and two kites of fifteen and twelve feet respectively, fastened
one above the other, will draw a carriage and four or five passengers at
the rate of twenty miles an hour. But George's invention went beyond the
simple idea. He had an extra line which enabled him to vary the angle of