Motor lorries have been put to strange uses from time
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to time, to wit the armoured Leyland and Hanford in the streets of Liverpool not long ago. But the most fantastic service was, l think, found for petrol lorries at Shrovetide in Manchester. It was the Tuesday of Show week, and a quaint custom in Cottonopolis decrees that the students of the various institutions shall bedeck themselves in all manner of fancy dress and promenade the streets. It smacks of Carnival Time on the Continent, but there is perhaps not quite so much abandon in Manchester. Anyhow, its grey streets, lined with expectant crowds, took on an entirely new aspect. The whole day was given tip to it apparently by the students, and I heard of a matinee performance of the pantomime crammed to suffocation by the revellers. It was at night, however, that I happened on a whimsical torchlight procession, some on horseback, hundreds on foot, others in horse-drawn yehicks, and all well guarded by a detachment of the City Police. Two great motor lorries formed the crowning part of the cortege, and these were filled to superfluity with wearers of the motley. As far as I could see the drivers were in fancy rig up, and even the bonnets of the cars carried a couple of jesters astride, armed with the conventional sticks and bladders, which were invaluable for clearing the way.
Some interesting personalities will be found in the photo. group on this page. This was taken one morning during the North of England Show in the Winter Garden of the Midland Hotel, Manchester. It was my hope to get together a larger number, but I found it to be a Chinese puzzle to fix a time suitable for everybody. At provincial exhibitions there are a number of 'nen who stoically retire to rest at the same hour as when at home, ensuring a quantum of beauty sleep, and they are naturally up next morning betimes and bustle off to the Show, before the place is properly aired—and there are others.
People engaged in the same business have naturally much to say of interest to each other, fresh acquaintanceships are formulated, old friendships are revived, and when the neutral meeting ground is the Octagon Court at the Midland, Manchester, it is not surprising that the " wee short hours ayont the twal " are the rule. Then you are faced with the "morning after the night before," and many take breakfast in their own rooms and transact their morning business per the very handy bedroom telephone. At any rate that is what they say when they finally reach the ground floor rather late. I am not preaching, understand ! I have personally much sympathy with a friend of mine who used sententiously to declare that he hated to go to bed as heartily as he hated to get up.
One opportunity I seized, when at the Manchester Show, was to go round one morning to the Karrier Cars' new Manchester depot at '2, Saint Ann's Place. Clayton's have secured most excellent premises here, a great corner site overlooking St. Ann's Square—as central as any in Manchester.
One of the most effective displays of solid tires at the Show was that of Dock-Swain, and it was interesting to learn that all the artistic fittings comprising the stand were made in the Dook-Swain factory. Even the sign was written there, all under the supervision of Mr. W. H. Yates, the manager.
The proposition made by a correspondent of mine in these columns a few weeks ago, that a new tribunal should be formed to deal with users' claims under mileage guarantees with solid tires has brought in so many letters that I have been compelled, through want of space at my disposal, to ask the Editor to deal with any further ones in the correspondence columns, viz., the " Opinions from Others" pages.
The Black Maria" on the Dennis stand at Rusholme was a grand acquisition to the practical jokers. It was a novel experience for most of us to examine the interior of a prison van. Not much persuasion was necessary to induce people to step inside. Thereupon the door was promptly closed from the exterior, and the shrieks of laughter soon warned the victim that. prison vans have no superfluous handles inside the vehicle. I am told that on one occasion during the Show a little girl ran beseechingly to the gentleman in charge of the Dennis stand. He was busy attending a customer, and in most tearful tones she begged him to come and let daddy out as someone had locked him in, and lie " was using the most fearful language."