Out and H ome. —By "The Extractor."
Page 13
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Carrying Wedding Cakes by Motorvan.—The Question of the Show.—Save Me from Kilburn.
When it collies to carrying bridecakes, jellies and creams at 20 miles an hour in a commercial motor, I think ii may be said that some advance has been made. I have just seen an enthusiastic letter from a director of a Scottish firm of restaurateurs. They nuist have many advantages over their catering competitors. with their fleet of vans. Wedding breakfasts and dinners within a wide radius of Edinburgh come specially within their business schemes. The set dishes for a dinner can be despatched from headquarters direct. Catering like this would be obviously impossible with horsed plant., and the possibilities conjured up in the mind are boundless. During last year I was a guest, with about 20 others, at a dinner party in the outer suburbs of London at a private house. It transpired later that the famous Lyons had set up a temporary kitchen, sent down cooks and waiters. Certainly the result was in the highest degree satisfac tory. But what a saving in cost if the whole of this dinner could be cooked at headquarters and dispatched in proper receptacles ready for serving at table. I am not quite certain that the Edinburgh restaurateurs, whose vans are illustrated on page 111 do not practically adopt this method. If not, it will certainly develop into that sooner or later. If a bride-cake, with all its delicate traceries, can be conveyed in vans on solid tires, there is great scope for their use by caterers. The question of a Commercial Vehicle Exhibition in London is always an interesting one. Local concerns and local agents may argue that the Manchester Show is all-sufficient, but you only require to get away from Manchester to almost any point of the. compass and the vote goes in favour of London. I believe there is a rapidlygrowing feeling in favour of such an exhibition. The advance made on the business-vehicle side during the past twelve months is very extraordinary, and it is felt by many that the surest way to push home the advantage gained is by means of an exhibition. It is indispensable, however, that the present horse user and the already converted user must be attracted somehow to the show. The question is, how is this to be effected? My own personal view is that it should he held concurrently with the pleasure-vehicle show, and the reason guiding this opinion is that the majority of potential buyers are already pleasure-car users and would be more likely to visit the heavy-vehicle exhibits whilst they were in town and whilst, motors were on their minds.
In connection with the foregoing, T reported last November that the had secured the Agricultural Hall for the period corresponding with the dale of the next pleasure vehicle show, and some suggested at the time that it would be a good idea to hold a commercialvehicle show during that tenancy. I do not agree with that view. My idea is—I have expressed it before —that, failing an enlargement of the present building at Olympia, a hall somewhere adjacent mignt be secured such as the Empire Building at Earl's Court or the Holland rark Skating Rink. A service of buses could then convey passengers between the two places, or, at the highest estimate, a shilling taxicab fare would require to be expended.
A chance hotel acquaintance last week quoted to me a notable saying of Emerson's, which I will try and remember. "if a man write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbour, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten pathway to his door." I will help to tread down these pathways all right, but a cloud comes over me when I have to go to such out-of-the-way places as Old Kent. Road, Old Ford, or the backwoods of Kilburn.
New vehicles are sure to be put on the market now, but users must continue to be wary of motorvans which are simply pleasure chassis fitted up with van bodies. I espied two new demonstration vans in a London street the other day which, as far as I could see, did not come within the above category. One was a Clement-Bayard van and the other the Edison-Electric, both very smart and well turned out.