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me. —By the Extractor.
A steam-wagon concern is now requiring an outdoor representative, and this will be an excellent opening for a gentleman with knowledge of steam-vehicle construction coupled with the instinct and ability to sell. Letters from suitable applicants stating qualifications and remuneration expected, addressed to " Steam," care of this journal, will be forwarded.
There is no lack of Money to be found to provide ambulances. Every association, every club of importance readily subscribes for a tangible thing like an ambulance, but there is a dearth of the wherewithal for the running expenses of same, and one delegate from a north-country town was asked if he was empowered to divert the money into the Red Cross Society's Funds instead of adding to the number of vehicles; he "firmly but respectfully declined," and quite right, too.
It has been noted in these columns how completely the horse has been superseded in modern warfare, but all the same he has still to be reckoned. I know a young officer who is consumed with eagerness to get over to France ; he has spent some years in a motorwagon works, and his commission is in connection with the motor-transport service. He is chafing in an up-country town at the moment going througk interminable horse drill for the reason that he may be put in charge of a mixed transport of motors and hones, and it is necessary that he be familiar with both.
One of my occasional luncheon companions, whom I had missed lately from time to time, remarked to me casually that he had been across to France eight or nine times since the war broke out, then out came a story most modestly told, of enterprise and seized opportunities. My friend is a pleasure-car concessionnaire with a business gone completely " phut " at the outbreak of war ; a trip over to France convinced him that if he only had British lorries there he could sell them. The point was to take his chance and present himself, with his wagons, at the French War Department at Bordeaux, to buy three at the early stage did not take long, but to get them over to drive them across France within sound of the guns through Amiens when the Germans were at the threshold required pluck, perseverance and resource. All this, too, without a word of French in his brain-box, but he gathered in a helpmate who knows the language which was the next best thing, and the British lorries were passed along no matter what else was held up, a day or two waiting for the money at Bordeaux, then back to England for more. NO hello was forthcoming from bankers, so in one of his subsequent trips with a bigger cargo, he 'reached his limit ; there was £10.000 at stake and he eoent five daysin Bordeaux waiting for the specie_ He will get on I think.
011a Podrida.
Mann's Steam Wagon Works are lust completing • an order of five three-tonners for Sir W. G. Armstrong-Whitworth and Co., Ltd. I notice they are painted War Office grey, andel gather they are for use in connection with Government works at Elswiek. Dodd, of the Belsize, is a regular Mark Tapley. He drives round to his agents the year through, and at Leeds this last week the weather would have irritated all archangel. Dodd says " Do you know I prefer driving in the winter ; one gets the road more to oneself, and there are no novices driving?"
Mr. John Muir, a well known and popular figure in connection with the Continental Tyre and Rubber Co., Ltd. has recently taken up an important position with the Wood-Milne people at Preston, and letters from his many friends will reach him there. Formerly with the Pierce-Arrow in America, Mr. Norris, until recently sales manager in the commercial-vehicle department of Napier Motors, Ltd., has re-entered the Pierce-Arrow service under Mr. KerrThomas's banner. The last-named gentleman is still at present in the homeland, and the appointment above-mentioned looks like a bid for British commer cial-vehicle custom.
Speculations as to the duration of the war meet one at -every turn. Lord Kitchener's estimate of three years is generally taken as intended for German consumption to give them an idea of our resources. I hear, however, that eminent Army authorities, quite high up, confidently put the date at April next, and many important people at Lloyd's are laying bets of 3 to 1 on the same month, so it is well worthy of consideration.