Loose Leaves.
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GLANCING over an American daily newspaper, the European edition of which is published in Paris, we observed that Havana, Cuba, now claims to be the best-kept city in the world. It is said to be the only known city where dustmen and street cleaners "parade for work each morning in stiff collars, neckties, gloves and brightly polished boots." (The nightshift men probably wear dinner jackets, but this is not stated!) Six to eight men form the crew of each refuse-collecting lorry and they work on the run, a gong being sounded when the lorry approaches each building as a signal for the dustbins to be brought out and the law requires that the bins must be taken in again immediately after the passing of the lorry. This is to prevent the blowing about and spreading of refuse, for the bins may, in no case, be set out before the lorry arrives. It sounds as if the whole populace of Havana leads a leisurely existence waiting for the dustman to call before some of them can start on their day's occupation: We are told that not a scrap of paper is to be found in the streets, for sweeping and cleaning go on day and night. After midnight high-pressure watering, sweeping and squeegeeing vehicles come into action. The vehicles employed are, not unnaturally, of American origin. Admittedly we have much to learn in keeping our streets clean.
WHILST there are objections to the employment of the unladen weight of a vehicle as a means for its classification for the purpose of determining the licence duty to be paid, no one has yet suggested a practicable and workable alternative, for whatever 1318 method be employed must be easy to apply by the clerical staff of the licensing authority. And probably no method would avoid the border-line cases. There are many vehicles which would weigh just under a ton or just under two tons if the tailboard or the lamps and accumulator or the van tilt were left off, but because, when weighing is necessary, all the parts must be included, the tax on many 1-ton vehicles is increased by £1 per annum and of a 2-tonner by £14 per annum—which latter especially is a severe punishment for carrying a few extra pounds of weight.
We are often asked what may reasonably he left off a vehicle when it is presented for weighing, and only this week have had to tell an inquirer that he cannot leave off the electric-lighting equipment. Electric . lamps are usually fixed to the vehicle and accumulators are necessary for their working, so that neither would come within the meaning of the term "loose tools and loose equipment." Usually water, oil and grease are permitted to be excluded, some licensing authorities allowing from one to two hundredweight to be deducted on their account. The term "unladen weight," of course, excludes any water, fuel or accumulators used for propulsion. We always recommend hauliers to adopt a special colour scheme for a platform lorry, so that it has no relation to any container that may be put upon it as a load. If the container were painted to matchthe platform lorry it would be difficult to contend that they were not parts of the some vehicle and so liable, possibly, to a higher tax.
SIR BASIL CLARKE tells us that during the past
few months samples of coal dust or slack have been obtained from more than 20 coalpits in all the coalbearing areas for treatment by the low-temperature carbonization process and that the results all round are satisfactory. He says that a high-quality coalite of better radiant efficiency than the best household coal can be produced, whilst the yield of rich gas, tar oils and spirit is satisfactory. Slack can be obtained at the Pithead for a few shillings per ton and the coalite and by-products yielded will give a profit of over one pound per ton. We would like to know how coalite behaves as a fuel for steam-wagon boilers.
MANY readers of this journal, no doubt, take a measure of interest in the developments of the internal-combustion engine outside the sphere of road transport, but anyone who happens for the first time
• to see The Motor Ship (the only monthly issued by Temple Press Ltd.) .).vciuld be astonished at the advance that has been made in the application of that type of engine to maHne propulsion. " The Motor Ship Referencei Book for 1928," just published, is a fiveshilling book which contains a lot of illuminating information about the motor ships of the world, engine and ship design and cognate subjects, and it would serve to bring up-to-date in an interesting manner one's knowledge of the developments referred to. It is profusely illustrated