From Our Berlin Correspondent.
Page 16
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Noise from Iron-shod Drays.
The good people of Mayence have petitioned the Corporation to place a veto on brewers' drays with iron-shod wheels, and, as one of the grounds brought forward, instance the collapse of incandescent gas-mantles in consequence of the passage of such automobiles through the streets.
Prolonged German Industrial Trials Contemplated.
I hear that the Imperial Motor Club purposes organising a three-week trial for industrial vehicles next spring— probably in May, which is regarded as a suitable period, the country roads being then comparatively free from agricultural traffic. To the project as such the trade will doubtless have no objection, unless it be to the exclusion of motorcabs, which are not contemplated as competitors, but it remains to be seen what the Imperial Motor Club will eventually make of its scheme.
On the former occasion, the organisers found, at the eleventh hour, that they had reckoned without their hosts in the persons of certain local authorities, who vetoed the holding of the trials through the very districts which would have supplied a searching test for the mechanical virtues of the competing vehicles. Rather than declare the whole competition null and void, as they had at first thought of doing on the receipt of the veto, they finally, after a period of irresolution, re-modelled their programme on the basis of a Brandenburg circuit, with easy going practically the whole way. Under such conditions, all makes were put much on
the same level, and, as a result, which raised a smile in many quarters, nearly every firm was in asposition to boast of a gold medal. Hence, I await with no little curiosity the material development of the Club's third scheme.
Berlin is again to furnish the starting point, and from here the route will zigzag across Germany, touching Dessau, Nordhausen, Cassel, Bielefeld, Osna. briick, Wesel, Aix-de-Chapelle, Coblence, Mannheim, Strasburg, Freiburg, and Stuttgart or some other terminus. Nothing has yet been definitely settled
respecting the route ; the towns given indicate only the probable line of march, which would unquestionably keep down the club's " little bill "for gold medals. It is also proposed to exhibit the vehicles at three towns, Berlin being one of them. One entire stage (the Strasburg-Stuttgart section is mentioned) is to be devoted to a fuel-consumption test, awards being based on the results of this test as well as on the general reliability of the several vehicles throughout the tour, which, including rests, will occupy three weeks,