Culled from Contemporaries.
Page 18
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A Selected Collection of Extracts from the British and Foreign Press.
A D cad Industry.
The electrical hearse, moving with stately silence, is really more dignified than one drawn by horses.-Science Siftings."
No P _lice Underground.
The overcrowding in tubes is getting worse. We fail to see why this is tolerated when motorbuses are censored by the police.—" John Bull."
Can't Control Cabby.
The alleged advantages of the taximeter machine have proved, from the point of view of the public, almost entirely illusory.—" The Commentator."
To Reduce Traffic Anarchy.
A Lonclres, lea omnibus s'artent le long dos trottoirs et aux terminus Es se rangent des deux cote,.
On a etabli cette solution au boulevard des Italiens.—" La France Automobile."
Nor a Dollar from a Dime (?)
Strange as it may seem, it is asserted that some of the examiners appointed to pass v-t chauffeurs applying for New York automobile licences are political heelers, and they don't know a carburetter from a daferential.—" Automobile Topics," New York.
A Yellow Peril.
At present the industry is threatened with an epidemic of power wagon contests that is entirely unsought by the manufacturers. The situation is peculiar in that the honour of this publicity is being thrust upon the builders of commercial vehicles by the usually coy and reluctant newspapers.—" Tile Motor World," New York.
Onomatopceous.
These buses are known among their friends, as it were, as " X's,'' because they each have X on the top of the bonnet. . . They are certainly much better. Instead of the alternate burr and choke of the old type, they give a rather pleas ing purr when they stop. . The new buses are painted a cheerful red, and they have fewer works protruding under neath and round the wheels.—" The Manchester Guardian."
When Britannia Waves.
In the pageant of life a not inconsiderable part is played by the pedestrian who essays the honourable role of Omnibus Hailer : ha, we mean, who does not wait for the bus but who makes, in the manner of Mabotriet, the bus wait for him. Of the people who arrest busee in their courses there are two distinct classes: there are the persons who shout " Hi !" and there are those who wave. . . . Not that we go so far even as to say that the wave always works. We freely grant that there are wavers and wavers. But the point upon which we cannot too strongly insist is this: that there is one wave which is invariably successful. It, is nob done with the arm. It. is not accomplished with the walkingstick. It is a wave of the umbrella : an umbrella of a certain size and form.-" The Globe."
. Is It Blackmail?
" The cabmen of London hold more secrets of the public than any body in the world. What would be said if these secrets were announced from the platform?"—From a speech by Sam Michaels reported in "The Chauffeur."
Orsregretted.
The cab, even if it should vanish altogether, will make little or no appeal to sentiment. It is lacking in that placid dignity which attaches to the Sedan chair, and it is not endowed with any of the romance and jollity associated with the old stage coach, or even with the democratic sociability of its contemporary, the omnibus.-Morning Past."
Crocodile's Tears.
Only the other day in New York a new society for the physical " uplifting " of the broken-down, abused, over-worked and under-fed horse was incorporated. The Horse Aid Society was formed to look after the poor creatures, strapped to tongue and shafts, the helpless victim of man's slave-driving animal nature.— " The Commercial Vehicle," New York.
Already Sped.
Those who recall the noise of the box of tricks known as a London motor omnibus will smile when they read that the chairman [of the Great Eastern Motor Omnibus Co.] at the meeting alluded also to the danger to pedestrians if the buses. were to be made too silent. Londoners, we imagine, will silently pray, speed the day.--" Newcastle Journal."
Hats and the Woman.
The days are at band when the taxis will be closed. It behoves us to think of this when buying our autumn headgear. The tendency of the latest toques and hats is to height, and to a distinct decrease in breadth. Therefore, dear purchasers of precious millinery, pause and consider ere your vaunting vanity overgrows itself and gets squashed by the first taxi you enter, to the damage of your self-respect and temper.—" The Sketch."
Get Together.
The majority of commercial firms are by now users of motor vehicles, and if they were all to join the Commercial Motor Users Association, that organization should be in a strong position to enforce any needed reforms. . . . The hammer as used by the individual is a feeble weapon in comparison with the hammer as used by the Association. Government officials regard the former with supercilious indifference, the latter with respectful dread. An individual finds innumerable difficulties in reaching the presence of the right man at a Government office ; a deputation gets there right away. Every business man of intelligence should not ply his hammer solo, but should join his hammer to all the other hammers and the concerto din is then sure to reach the unwilling ears of the powers-that-be.—" Magazine of Corn. merce."
Runs Like a Train.
The reliability of the road motors continues to improve. During a recent four weeks, the total number of failures from mechanical causes numbered four: the car mileage was 63,761, giving an average of 15,840 miles per failure.-" The G.W.R. Magazine."
Topographical Exactitude.
if, jumping into a cab and saying, " 12, Blatherskytc: Square," we find that the driver has to ask his way, we are at once oppressed with a sense of grievance. It seems our absolute right to find cabdrivers to whom no square is obscure, no crescent unfamiliar.—" The Daily Express," London.
From the Bank to Mandalay.
Where went the cab of yesterday? Whither have they departed, those dear hansoms of our youth? The top-hatted, cherubic, abusive driver, one may suppose—with some incredulity—to be still with us, masking in the peaked cap, waterproof jacket and trim leggings of a chauffeur, or one may picture him as a growling night watchman, or retired riving on his capital, or in some more lamentable and uncertain way of life.
And the horse, belike, has gone the way of all flesh, quadruped or biped, in a normal manner—died in bed, as it were, or,.
with more sudden stroke cut off, has helped to feed us as pork pie, steak and. kidney pudding, or Irish stew.
But what of the cab 1—that triumph of top-heaviness, kept from falling only by the magic of its pace, that wonder of economy in material. . . What has be come of it? Firewood? Perish the thought I We are not as brutal as all that. . . . When the driver has got down from his perch and entered his name at a school for chauffeurs, when the horse has been unharnessed and led away to the knacker's yard, does the cab gather itself together and rush off, faster and faster, with shafts outstretched, into theEwigkeit?
I had come to think so—and then yesterday I heard a traveller's tale. Palan quills, it appears, are coming into fashion again in the East—palanquins borne by horses, palanquitis borne by slaves or
coolies, as the case may be), palanquins
of a splendour not achieved since the an. cient day's trot through the streets of Pekin, Tokyo, Calcutta, Benares, Cabul,
and Teheran. Native papers speak of thebeautiful fantastic shape—like a cup, like
a flower, a black flower, with eyes that Shine in the night, though they ask with some show of indignation why from the lofty outer seat the figure of no god. looks down.
So now you know. The East has taken back from us its gift of beauty, and the hansom cab that once flashed down Piccadilly and the Strand now carries darkeyed sultans and sultanas at a dignified jog-trot along palm-overladen ways.
It is a firm of Brumnaagcn patriots, I find on further inquiry, who buy up all the old cabs and scatter them for a consideration over the grateful East.—W .R.. Titterton, in " Vanity Fair."