News and Comment.
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This journal has the largest and best circulation, i.e., the total of subscribers' orders and actual sales through newsagents.
Two weeks from to-day—our special number on " Motor Hiring."
People have lost money over motor transport, but others have made and are making handsome profits. It is our business .to point out cause and effect in the above-named issue.
A Precedent.
NO. 3 of " THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR " contained a short article, from the Editor's pen, on the subject of " Road carrying by contract." :\ction was taken upon its contents, by not a few go-ahead men with a little money at their disposal, and they have not had occasion to regret their enterprise. They have been able, from the information and hints then given, to amass respectable profits, as well as to draw regular incomes from the outset. In several instances, fleets of steam wagons have been acquired out of revenue.
New Ground.
The issue should appeal to a diversity of interests, as the principles of motor hiring enter into a very large number of businesses. Existing haulage contractors and teamowners will be the first to gain from the data and information which this special number will contain, but parties who are out to study motor-mail services will be equally benefited. There are, however, outside the ranks of traders whose vocations obviously lie in one or other of the branches of transport service for hire, numerous individuals, companies, and firms whose needs are not far removed from those of persons who do quote exclusively conveyance rates : we refer to allied yet separated trades whose members have, in their study of the convenience of others as much as their own returns, to combine both terminal and haulage services as an integral part of the work which they agree to undertake. These traders, of whom we may name at hazard removal contractors, caterers, cabinet makers, house decorators and furnishers, and
piano manufacturers, will, from a perusal of our issue of the 15th instant, be able to satisfy themselves on many outstanding points. Orders with newsagents should be placed in good time.
C.M.U.A. Parade.
Entries for the C.M.U,A. parade will be found on page 64. Messrs. lVatkins Brothers, of the Imperial Flour Mills, Hereford, who are subscribers to this journal, write to express their regret that they are not near enough to London to send their live-ton Foden wagon, which now has about 27,000 miles of running to its credit.
Polack Tires.
At the moment of going to press, we are advised by Mr. F. Poppe, of the Polack Tyre 'Company, of 31-34, Basingliall Street, E.C.., that his company's tires have been very successful in the recent Italian Trials. Out of eighteen machines which satisfactorily came through the tests, ten which gained prizes, including firsts, ran on Polack tires, which clearly predomi nated in favour on this occasion. , It is reported that some Belgian capitalists are jointly interested with Russian capitalists in the schemes for motor transport around St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kieft, Odessa, and Warsaw.
An Interesting Experiment.
Messrs. Simonis, of Norfolk House, Norfolk Street, W.C., recently supplied a motor tri-ear to the Beckenham Urban Council for use as a first-aid machine at fires. Many other brigades will watch with interest whether this small unit proves strong enough in construction for the work to which it is being put.
Bakery Delivery in Ireland.
We illustrate herewith a t6h.p. Albion lorry, which has recently been dispatched to Inglis and Company, Limited, of Belfast, which company probably has the largest bakery busi
ness in the North of Ireland. Deliveries are undertaken over a very extensive area, and it is clear that this motor will he the forerunner of many others for like purposes.
The Daimler-Knight Engine.
Speculation is rife as to the future which lies before the Daimler-Knight " valveless " engines. These have been exhaustively tested in the Daimler Company's shops, at Coventry, for upwards of twelve months, and they will shortly go out into the hands of users, under common and road conditions, where they may be expected, in the course of the next year or two, to demonstrate their merits, or to show their defects—if there are any. The essential features of this interesting and promising motor are dealt with briefly on pages 73 and 74.
Not a Tilling's Bullion Van.
One of the most ingenious and daring bank robberies of recent years took place on Wednesday of last week. The perpetrator, who humorously adopted the nom-de-guerre of D. S. Windell, succeeded, by means of forged transfer notes and a taxicab, in appropriating from each of eight of the south suburban branches of the London and South Western Bank, a sum of ,{$290— -C', '20 in all. The round of calls only took two hours, and only the speed of the taxicab rendered the scheme feasible. Suspicion might otherwise have been aroused before the coup was completed. We presume Mr. Davitt Samuel \\*hide]] had not procured an advance copy of our last issue, and so had conceived his bold scheme as a result of his perusal of our description
of Tilling's new vans with which contracts are to be sustained for the cartage of bullion from bank to bank. It is not the first occasion on which a motorcar has been used to aid a robber in his work, but the prospect of such operations in the Metropolis had not hitherto become evident_ We learn that the Manchester Ship Canal Company, Limited, is arranging through rates by road motor wagon, as well as by rail. This is, indeed, a sign of the times.
S.E. and C.R.
From to-day, the ist October, the South Eastern and Chatham Railway Company announces that the day service between Berlin and London, and vice versa, vi ft Flushing, will be accelerated by more than an hour.
Halley Vehicles.
Halley 's Industrial Motors, Limited, of Yokel-, Glasgow, recently supplied a lorry to the Scottish Motor Carriers, Limited, of 175, St. Vincent Street, Glasgow, and we understand that this machine is being used for contractcarrying work in the neighbourhood of the Clyde. Another interesting matter, in connection with the Halley manufacture, is the company's entry of a 34h.p. Three-ton lorry in the trials which
were receridy held by the Danish War Office. We illustrate the vehicle herewith, and we may add that its body is specially designed for the conveyance of military stores. It was the only repro. tentative from Scotland, and it ran in competition with such well-known makes as the Buessing, and German Daimler ; the only other British competitor was the Armstrong-Whitworth Company. We look forward with intcreA to a report as to how this machine acquitted itself in such good corn-pane, and under the severe conditions which the tests imposed.
Petrol Lorries for Brewers.
Messrs. Whitworth, Son and Nephew, of the Brewery, Wadi-onDearne, to which company Leyland Motors, Limited, recently supplied one of its standard live-ton petrol lorries, are finding the machine most useful. During the Doncaster autumn races, this machine frequently took 5.1-ton loads of wines, spirits, minerals, etc., and travelled a distance of it miles, in a trifle over 5o minutes. A photograph which we reproduce was taken in the course of a trial before purchase, for which reason the wagon is not shown in its finished state as now used.
We arc interested to learn that the
Leyland Company is enjoying quite a run of orders for its petrol vehicles from brewers. It has for many years done a big business with them in steam lorries, and these purchasers must feel confid-ac,• in both the material and at tendon which the placing of further orders secures to them. We may quote such orders for Leyland petrol vehicles from G ref tml all, Whitley and-Company, Limited, of St. Helens, and Messrs. J. GreenwoA and Sons, of Blackburn.
The chassis are constructed for either three-ton or five-ton loads.
A Question of Route.
Mr. Paul Taylor, at the Marylebone police court, last week, refused to grant it summons against a lady, on the request of a taxicab driver who had, on being called, driven other than the shortest way from his rank to the lady's house.
Express Renaults.
The accompanying illustration of a oh.p. two-cylinder Renault motorvan in the service of Swan and Edgar, Limited, shows one of the uses to which motorcab chassis may readily he put. The handsome body is by Messrs. Wilkinson, of Uxbridge, and it is finished in vermilion and white. A Stepney spare wheel is carried, and this van is employed on express delivery work, from about ii ant. to 6 p.m. each day, for the purpose of serving distant suburbs such as Norwood and Wimbledon. There is little doubt that this type of chassis is strong enough to servo for the lighter dentands of tradesmen who send out soft goods, draperies, lingerie, etc. It will not, however, do well for loads above 8-to cwt. gross. " Shell " spirit, not for the first time, was used, in the Isle of Man, on the winning vehicle in the recent competition for cars fitted with engines haying a cylinder bore of four inches tor less).
Hor.es or Motors at Greenwich?
A scheme has been presented to the Greenwich Borough Council for the establishment of a depot for the highways department, at an estimated cost of .4;2,000 ; this has met with opposition, on the ground that the &mined would do better to get rid of its horses and perform the scavenging and " dusting " by motors, the latter being put forward as the cheaper method. Chelsea and Westminster will no doubt confirm this view, if asked by the Greenwich Surveyor and Engineer.
The September number of the " Indian Motor News " quotes at length our Editorial of the rtith July last, on the subject of " Fire-brigade. Motors."
company called the London, Bath, and Bristol Motors, Limited, has recently been formed, with a capital of -4:25,00o, for garage and allied purposes, including sales and motor hiring, in the cities indicated.
A British Industry.
Says the " Daily News," in its issue of the 25th September : " The credit of the evolution of the self-propelled cootmercial vehicle belongs essentially to this country. British chassis for heavy loads are unsurpassed (and probably not equalled) by those produced by any other nation, and they are fast becoming the standard for the world. . • . Commercial vehicles are coming widely into vogue, all classes of trading concerns finding them of immense utility."
Economics and Commercial Science.
The syllabus for the winter term of the London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London) has been issued by the secretary. This school is situated in Clare Market, Kingsway, W.C., and its lectures include the following courses : economics, including statistics; politics and public administration ; economic and political history ; law ; sociology; commerce and industry ; accounting and business methods; banking; and transport. We are sorry to see that the lectures under the last-named head are solely devoted to railway topics, as the features of road transport deserve a place.