Our Prize Scheme for Good Driving.
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Forthcoming Parade on the Thames Embankment.
The accompanying table summarises the entries for the first parade in our prize-scheme for good driving. This year's muster is limited to the Metropolitan area, and to drivers of steam lorries and tractors, and the 26 men, from whose employers the necessary details have been obtained, are about the pick of their vocation. We do not mean that equally good men, many of whom cannot get away, are not engaged on numerous other London wagons and tractors, but that the conditions are such as to bring only the best to the front.
The total mileages are very instructive, and they refute the argument that these machines will not last. A verbal examination is part of the test, and a series of practical questions has been prepared and applied by the judges' committee. We hope that many of our readers will attend the parade, on Saturday ,next, at three o'clock, on the Embankment. The drivers and machines are to muster to the East of ?Vaterloo Bridge facing Westwards. The Motor Union proposes to appeal to the High Court in a case where the leaving of unrolled stone, extending horn kerb to kerb, on a particular highway near Blackwater, caused a motorcar driver to use the footpath.
Notes from Paris.
During the Salon de l'Automobile, 6o students of the Military School at Versailles visited the section devoted to commercial motor vehicles, an officer explaining to them their application and utility for army transport purposes.
M. Lepine, the Prefect of Police, has appointed an inspector to run round Paris in a motorcar in the early morning for the purpose of keeping an eye on Paris milkmen suspected of contravening the Food and Drugs Act It is announced that the first congress on the road question will be held in Paris in November of next year. Annual conferences on the road question, with particular reference to the prepara_ tion of the highways of France for motor traffic, have recently been initiated by the Minister of Public Works, with the full concurrence of the Touring Club de France, the A.C.F., and similar bodies.
There has been some agitation in Paris of late in favour of placing the steering wheels of motorcars on the left of the vehicles, the traffic of the city moving on the right. One result is seen in the announcement that the Compagnie Generale des Petites Voitures has ordered a number of motorcabs from the firm of' Clement-Bayard, which shall carry the steering column On the left.
The Paris Municipal Council is being mildly inundated with proposals concerning the unification of tariffs for taxicabs," the latest to befog its perception of the situation corning from the Ligue Patronn ale des Chauffeurs, Loneurs, et Co-operateurs des Automobiles de Place, which has declared for the following charges :-4oc. per kilometre or 3fr. per hour. This rate of hire is garnished with the usual string of supplements, and a recommendation is added that distance charts be carried, and that cabs with varying tariffs bear some distinctive sign. The interior fighting of cabs is also advised. A Finnish "Commercial" Factory.
For some time past the Trarnmerfors Linno och Jarnmanufaktur Aktiebog,alet, in Finland, has been thinking of taking up automobiles as a new branch of manufacture, and its decision now falls on the industrial class. In a short time we shall see the first fruits of this decision, General Motor Cab Company's Report.
The first annual general meeting of the General Motor Cab Company, Limited, will be held at Salisbury House, on Monday next the 16th instant, at 12 o'clock noon; when the report and statement of accounts for the year ending the 3oth May, 1907, will be presented. The paid up capital amounts to .4'341,656, to which a loan of £30,852, which is secured by 3 charge on the company's freehold land and buildings, must be added, whilst sundry creditors, amounting to ,,'8,473, bring the total liabilities to ,4'380,981. The authorised capital is L5o0,000. The assets include : freehold land arid buildings, 4.73,731; amount paid in respect of the purchase of 1,000 Renault cabs, including specified spare parts, tires, and wheels, £198,582; amount paid to date in respect of 50 Charron cars, ;16,667; plant, machinery, etc., £2,994; stocks on hand, .4.8,254; interest in United Motor Cab Co., Ltd., £7,500; underwriting and preliminary expenses, ..47,796; teaching suspense account, -L997; unexpieed licenses and insurances, rents, rates, etc., £3,272 ; stamp payments recoverable, ; cash at bankers and in hand, 49,231; loss to the r3th May, .4.9,682. The other charges bring the total loss, at the date named, to ;4:1t;to6, but the directors, statement explains that the profits since the middle of May have more than made good the debit balance in question, which was in respect of a period when the company's operations were in every sense of a preliminary character.
The average number of taximeter cabs in service for the six months ending the r3th November last has been 306, whilst only 86 cabs were in work at the beginning of this period. The company's prospects appear to be reasonably good, though the excess of competition renders any large return highly improbable. R.A.C. Trials.
The Secretary of the Royal Automobile Club, Mr. J. W. Orde, has dispatched a large mounted print of the group at Bedford, from the photograph by Mr. Argent Archer, of High Street, Kensington, and which was reproduced on page 152 of our issue of the 17th October, with the compliments of the Club, to each official observer. We espect that this souvenir will prove more acceptable than the white-metal matchbox which we illustrated on page i8o of our issue of the 24th October.
A Coach Painter's Album.
We have received from Wilkinson, Ileywood, and Clark, Ltd., of 7, Caledonian Road, King's Cross, London, N., its list of motor varnishes, colours, and paints. The volume, which contains 165 beautifully-printed, colour plates, is an extremely handsome one and is replete with designs for lettering, monograms, arms, etc., and colour schemes for body painting. The album has been designed and executed throughout by J. and C. Cooper, Ltd., of 64, Long Acre, London, W.C., and it is a publication which cannot but add to the reputation which that wellknown company has built up for itself.
Motor Rollers.
Messrs. Barford and Perkins, of Queen Street Iron Works, Peterborough, whose trade in self-propelled, water-ballast rollers increases each month, are doing a growing trade with the Colonies and various foreign buyers. A single shipment of three, for the far East, was recently made, and we illustrate these rollers herewith. One of this make of roller was at work, during part of November, on Constitution Hill, where some allcrations and widening-s are approaching completion, and an opportunity for an inspection in London may still exist there. If not, there should be plenty of others, as this firm has taken numerous Government orders for its petrol rollers. Paraffin fuel can be used if desired. This firn'r is unable to show a roller on its stand at the Smithfield show (No. 132 in main gallery).
Nuremberg and Motor Traffic.
In forbidding motorcabs to stand where they were most likely to pick up fares, the Nuremberg Corporation reckoned without the influential part of the daily and technical Press, as well as the cab-using public, and the City Fathers eventually gave way before the flood of protests, and modified the offending regulation. However, as to the busy Konigstrasse, drivers are cautioned that it will be " taboo " for them, if they make the road filthy with oil and grease droppings. At the same sitting at which the " concession " was made, the Commissioner of Police emphasised the desirability of motorcabs having their numbers lighted up at night-time, with a view to facilitating identification in case of accident, and the councillors considered a petition from some of the cab-owners to raise the minimum fare from 6d. to 7.4:1. for 656 yards. The petition was rejected. ls to the lighting up of numbers, the Corporation will make further enquiry.