Culled from Contemporaries.
Page 21
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A Selected Collection of Extracts from the British and Foreign
Press.
His Majesty the Cabby.
Mr. Haley Furniss has been complaining in the papers of the haughtiness and freezing arrogance of taxicab drivers. It ae has only just discovered that, he has tither just arrived in London or he's nicky.--Lenden Opinion.
Horse-drawn Herdics.
Pursuant to an act of Congress the Met-opolitan Couch Co. is now preparing to mbstitute motor vehicles for the present mrse-drawn herdics now used on Sixeenth street in. Washington, D.C. These eerdics have been an eye-sore for years Ind there is much rejoicing that they arc
o be supplanted he motor omnibuses.— Itotor Age, Chicago.
Awkward for the Hawkers.
The motor has to bear the brunt of everyhing, and now the eviction of the hawkers rom Ludgate Bill is put down to the den;ers and aaearies of the motorbus. Christnas Fair tram St. Paul's to Ludgate -e'ircus hits for years been one of the De:ember institutions of London life ; and low the vendors of penny toys in hun'reds have been ousted by the modern egeeraaut, before which they are uot alowed to immolate themselves by the iarental police.—London Opinion.
A Note of Warning.
Every day it becomes more and more vident, that some expert action ought to e. brought to bear on the driven of taxiabs in London, if the injury which they re doing to the automobile cause is to e stopped: at 0 reasonably early stripe, fowever freely it may be admitted that a ection of these men are all that can be esired as careful and skilful drivers, and, owever deserving of leniency others Ines e on the erounds that they are new to aeir worle the fact still remains that reck!ss &aerie has become rampant in the treets with the rapid advent of the motor ab. . . That which is at the root of se taxicab e-noble is the system adopted y many of the drivers to force a way—by seer noise and dash-through the crowded weets.-T Autoluctor journal, London.
Municipal Motors for everyone.
Although Nlilwaeltee's city comptroller as 'n.vel se to spending 3,600 dollars for motorcar ror the chief of oolice because ie fire chicEs car cost but 1,200 dollars, ie common council unanimously decided + go one better and passed a resolution 'Ming for a car to cost 4,600 dollars. [bile the common council were at it, a umber of aldermen got together and deded to ask for a committee car for use the various committees of the common )uncil. This would make six municipal .atorcare for Milwaukee.. In the anml budget of thc city of Milwaukee, proision is made in the estimate for police tpartment support for a motor ambunce. The -department already has a 500-dollar motor patrol truck and the lief has a 3,600-dollar touring car. Sec:tary Frank M. Harbach. of the Milaukee board of school directors, was ranted an appropriation for a car for the lard and himself —3folor Age, Chicago.
They Wouldn't Skid on Snow.
The dream of the London motorbuses is to be put on runners, so that their existence may be one long skid.—The Evening News, London.
Taxi Tips.
" Including tips, taxicab drivers in New York are said to make as much as 875 a week," observes a country paper, and comments : "The delightful humour of men making $75 a week accepting tips from people making from $15 a week up." Horseless Age, New York.
Cheap Indeed!
Motor omnibuses are at a big discount in France. . . Two de Dion-Bouton 15h.p. two-cyliuder type bu;es have been adapted for the purpose of a travelling kinemaiograeh show. Electric light, both for the tent and the kinematograph lantern, is provided by the dynamos, and these are driven by the motors on the omnibuses, whilst the transport of all the owner's stock-in-trade is conveniently done on the tops of the vehicles. We commend the idea to our English showmen as a cheap and effective means of travelling from town to town. We are informed that for £50 an omnibus with perfect engines can be obtained in every way adapted for their use..—The Kinenzato• graph and Taniern Weekly, London.
Last Relics of a Departing Age.
The taxicab and motor-omnibus have proved an immense boon to thousands, diminishing the difficulty of housing a prodigious zind ever-growing urban population. There are many complaints of the new means of transit, no doubt, hut not more than there were of cyclists in the early days of the cycle, and, perhaps, not so many as attended the first appearance of the railway. Such is the conservatism of the human race that any innovation will always provoke the hostility of the multitude. A few years hence and the animus now sometimes shown against motor vehicles will have been transferred to the aeroplane..
The disappearance of the horse will be regretted by many, hut it is a great gain from the sanitary standpoint in the city. The trouble is that in the present transition era our streets and our traffic arrangements are prwfectly adapted to neither form of locomotion. Slow vehicles are permitted to hold the centre of the road because the work for the horse is easiest where there is least "camber," and thus the faster motorcar or motor-omnibus is seriously impeded. The influence of the taxicab apon the horse-drawn cab has been curious. It has proved more fatal to the hansom than to the four-wheeler, because the mail who wishes to travel fast used always to select a hansom, and now he goes by taxicab. The lot of the hansom proprietors in face of this tendency has become a hard one. Some have attempted to meet the difficulty by placing faster and better horses in their cabs, but others appear so have given up all effort in despair and to have resigned themselves to sending out quadrupeds which are impolitely described as "hair-trunks "—last relics of the departing age of the noblest of animals.—Daily Mail, London
Watching the Wheels Go Round.
While the taximeter itself is generally popular, it is not universally so. There seems to be a certain class of customers who cannot enjoy a ride while they can see their bill running up on the dial. One passenger said that "the JO cents jumped up so fast it made him dizzy.' The Horseless Age, New York.
Waited an Hour for Horses.
Dritlield horsing arrangements do ece appear to be entirely satisfactory, as on the 2ad tilt. the Brigade turned out and had to wait au hour for a second pair of horses to take the engine to a country fire. Supt. Alton, in reporting the circumstances to the Driffield Urban District Council, says :—" If we are to continue going out of the town to fires it is high time I had a proper understanding where to go for horses. At any time -we are ready for a call of fire, and can have the men up and engine out in 20 minutes, hut I never know when or where I am -going to get horses. Other Brigades go out of their district, and can get off in quick time, thereby getting to a fire before it has done so much damage."—Fire and Water, T.onclon.
How Locos. Are Cared For.
Why should the owner of a commercial vehicle be satisfied, day after day, to have his machine run into the garage after work in the eeening and there left without even examination until the driver appears again in the morning to crank it and start out on another clay's run? It is art insensate machine—yea And so is a modern locomotive. But does the truck owner have out idea of the attentions which a great railroad gives to its power equipment, merely to see that it is cleaned and looked over?
The Illinois Central Railroad is not a great system, comparatively. In its Chicago roundhouse it can accommodate only 38 locomotive; at one time, but a force of 155 men, including inspectors, " specialist " men and engine wipers, are employed there, year after year, while 10 miles away in the great shops at Burnside are 1,500 men whose. sole work is the keeping of locomotive parts in repair.
No locomotive runs into passenger station or freight terminal without its roundhouse examinations, its small repairs, and, above all, its careful grooming and wiping down from its smokestack rim to the bottom of the last driver, Fourteen men are in a wiper's gang and they have swarmed over a locomotive, busied with cotton waste and flue brushes, long before the boiler jacket is cool enough for a bare hand,
Why should the truck owner, dumping his machine in Its house week after weck unattended, he " sore " and profane if some morning it refuses to do the work expected of it? If a 19,000-dollar locomotive in the hands of one of the most intelligent and competent of enginceis must be looked over by a score of expert attendants after every run, why should not a 2,500-dollar truck—often trusted to a man who knows little enough about its mechanism and operation—also i.e deserving of like consideration?—The Commercial Vehicle, New York,