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By"rh e &Jaz-a c tor "
I gladly give publicity to the fact that Messrs. R. Easton and Son, engineers and makers of lifts ;tnd cranes, have removed from tos, Sumner Street, Southwark, to newlybuilt premises, in order to cope with an increase of business. The new address is 28-30, Southwark Bridge Road, S.E., and it is noteworthy that they occupied the former premises continuously for 40 years.
I know a gentleman who helds a high position in the motor trade, who is thoroughly well up in modern shop management, and who will be disengaged shortly. I shall be glad to act, in the strictest confidence, as the " medium '1 to put any first-class firm in communication with this gentleman, whom I know to he a capable and experienced engineer of the highest integrity, and possessed of the right qualifications to take entire charge, inclusive of business and sales.
One of our good friends who makes an excellent. petrol lorry, and whose record and business show that his company has tackled the problem successfully, informs me that "Tim COMMERCIAL MOTOR " is biassed and that all its praise —all its favourable accounts—go in the direction of extolling the capableness of the steam vehicle, which, looked at through petrol eyes, would appear to be a lumbering and rattling caravan, with but the slightest modifications since the days of " Puffing Billy." One would get that impression, I repeat, if one took
literally the strictures of some of the vendors of vehicles of the internalcombustion type. On the other hand, one or more of the "steam people have indicated, with much earnestness, that it is obvious to the meanest intellect that our sympathies are entirely with petrol, and that we abstain in the most shameless manner from giving any publicity whatever to the performances and the merits of steam.
Our readers, who have doubtless found themselves interested in the many articles and the exhaustive descriptions of both steam and petrol vehicles, will probably concede to us that business zeal alone is at the back of these cornplainings, and that the advantages of both sides are adequately published. The situation brings to my mind the intended conciliatory reply of a newly-elected mayor in, I think it was, a Lancashire town. He said : " Gentlemen ; during my year of office you can depend upon it I shall take care to be neither Partial nor impartial.'' It was may lot to be in Southampton during last week, and I looked in for a moment one evening at one of those auctions at which jewellery and pictures are dispensed at incredible prices to the horny-handed. What struck me on this occasion was a terse printed notice the terms of which were new to me. It ran as follows : " If you are pleased, tell your friends ; if you are not, please tell us." This may seem obvious to some, but to my mind it is very shrewd, and it reminds
me of a far-sighted observation which emanated from an astute newspaper proprietor who was engaging a gentleman to assist on what is known as the " commercial side " of the paper. He remarked : If you hear any adverse criticisms of any features of our paper, I shall be at all times, interested to hear them ; or, on the other hand, I shall be interested to know of any favourable comments you may hear concerning any special features of our contemporaries," The storage of petrol amongst large users is a question of vital hnportance, and unless it be kept in steel tanks there is likely to ht much. leakage; then, apart from the loss, danger will follow. The Steel Barrel Co., of Uxbridge, has recently. supplied to Whiteley's a plant consisting of a rectangular storage tank to contain L000 gallons, and two 20gallon measuring tanks. It is interesting to note that the storage tank is fitted underground, and that the petrol is pumped into an overhead measuring tank; it then flows by gravity through Willcox-Jones flexible hose into the vehicle. All tanks are made of electrically-welded steel and are perfectly tight. A very useful. blotting pad is issued by the Uxbridge company, with illustrations of its various installations, and consumers of petrol in bulk should write for one. Motor manufacturers, too, will do well to consider the claims of these tanks for use on heavy vehicles. They are, naturally, much stronger than any soldered sheet-metal tank.