Chapter 3 CHAPTER III THE EFFECTS OF BARBICAN'S REPORT

No pen can express the effect of those last words of the Honorable Chairman.Shouts, din, yells, cheers, "Cough! Hi! Hi! Hurrah!" and all the onomatopoeia of American English came out in succession!It was chaos, an indescribable tumult!They yelled, clapped their hands, and stomped their feet, almost knocking down the floor of the hall.Even if all the weapons in this artillery museum fired together, it would not disturb the sound waves any more.In fact, there is no need to make a fuss.Some gunners were almost as loud as their cannons. Barbicane remained silent amidst the yelling and excited audience, and perhaps wished to say a few words to his members, for he gestured to them to be silent, while his explosive bells blew furiously. They Didn't hear it at all.A short time later the audience pulled him from his seat and carried him on their shoulders like a victory parade, and he was passed from the hands of his faithful members to the arms of an equally excited crowd. superior.

Nothing troubles the Americans.We often say that there is no word for "difficult" in French; obviously, we looked it up in the wrong dictionary.In America everything is easy, everything is simple, and as for the mechanical difficulties, they are overcome before they arise.Between Barbicane's proposal and its realization, no true American allows himself to see a shadow of difficulty.It's said, it's done. The chairman's victory parade continued well into the night.This is a real torchlight parade.Irish, Germans, French, Scots, all the different races that make up the population of Maryland, yelled in their native languages, intermingling "Hurrah!" Hurrah! " and "Okay! "The cry.

Just at this time, the moon seemed to know that this agitation had something to do with itself. It shone solemnly and calmly, and the bright moonlight covered up the sparks around the moon.All Americans are looking at the bright moon disk.Some people waved to it, some called it with the most gentle name, these people looked at it with their eyes, and others threatened it with their fists. From eight o'clock until midnight, a spectacle dealer in Qiongxia Street Made a fortune selling binoculars.Everyone looked at the celestial bodies in the night with binoculars, as if this was a noble lady.The Americans take out the air of being the master and are quite casual with it.As if fair-haired Fu Bei had belonged to these daring conquerors, and the moon had become part of the territory of Taizhong.But this is merely sending it a cannonball, a form of friendship which, even for a satellite, is imprudent, but it is common in civilized nations.

It was past twelve, and the fervor had not abated, and it retained its weight in every class of the population.Officials, scholars, big merchants, peddlers and porters, intelligent people feel that their most delicate heartstrings have been plucked like "novice". The quays in the Badasko River and the boats moored in the harbours, were filled with crowds intoxicated with joy, gin and whiskey, from carefree lying on sofas in bars with From the gentlemen with ice-sherry to the sailors in the gloomy taverns of Point Heights drinking heartburn drunkenly, everyone is arguing and arguing, and everyone praises it. A no-brainer.

But at about two o'clock the excitement subsided. Chairman Barbicane was now able to withdraw and return home, tired and aching, as if all his bones had been crushed.Even a strong man can't resist such excitement.The crowd slowly left the square and the street.The city was quieter after Baltimore's four railroads, bound for Ohio, Susquehanna, Philadelphia, and Washington, brought masses of various races to the United States. It would be a mistake to think that Baltimore was the only city that was effervescent on that memorable night.Every metropolis in Taiwan, New York, Boston, Albany, Washington, Richmond, Crescent City, Charleston, Mobile, from Texas to Massachusetts, from Michigan to Florida, all cities are also having a carnival .In fact, the thirty thousand correspondents of the Gun Club, informed by their chairman, awaited the famous report of October 5th with equal eagerness.Therefore, that very night, the words of the report, as soon as they left the speaker's mouth, ran down the wires across the country at a speed of two hundred and forty-eight thousand four hundred and forty-six miles per second. Be sure, he said, that America, ten times the size of France, cried out at the same time: "Hurrah!" And those twenty-five million proud hearts beat with the same pulse.

The next day, fifteen hundred dailies, weeklies, fortnightly, or monthly journals were dealing with the problem, studying it from the point of view of cultural or political vantage, from various aspects of physics, meteorology, economics, or ethics. .They deal with the question of whether the Moon is a finished world, a world that will not change.Is it the same as when the earth had no atmosphere?What does the invisible side of the earth look like?Although it is just a cannonball fired at the celestial body in the night, everyone sees that this is the beginning of a series of experiments, and everyone hopes that the Americans will one day discover the last secret of this mysterious moon disk. Some even seem to have worried that conquering the moon would significantly upset the balance of power in Europe.

After discussion, no newspaper doubted the realization of the project, and the merits of the project were emphasized in anthologies, pamphlets, journals, and magazines published by various scientific, literary, or religious societies. The Natural History Society of Boston, Orba The American Academy of Sciences and Arts in New York, the Geographical and Statistical Society in New York, the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, and the National Museum in Washington, D.C., sent thousands of congratulatory letters to the Gun Club, expressing their willingness to provide direct human and financial assistance.

Therefore, we can say that never before has an initiative gained so many people's support, hesitation, doubt, worry, nothing at all.Had it been in Europe, and especially in France, there would have been many mean jokes, caricatures, and sardonic ditties to welcome the idea of ​​sending cannonballs to the moon, but this would do them no good, in the face of public outrage , All the self-defense weapons in the world can't protect them.In the new world, there are some things that are not allowed to be joked about.From that day on, Barbicane became one of America's greatest citizens, something of a "Washington of science," and this is how we see how far the people of a nation can adore a man. One of many examples of . "A few days after that famous meeting of the Cannon Club, an English theater director announced a production in a theater in Baltimore. But the townspeople, finding the title insulting to President Barbicane's plans, flooded into the theater, smashed seats, forced The unfortunate manager replaced his poster. The fellow, who had sense of the times, bowed his head to the will of the public, replaced the ill-fated comedy with "As You Like It", and made an astounding sum during a few weeks.