THE EQUIPMENT OF CARS FOR " COMMERCIALS' ."
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in our issue dated 24th April, p. 150, there appeared an article entitled " The Equipment of Cars for ' Commercials.' " This created a considerable amount of interest, and we accorded various trade bodies and institutes facilities to reproduce the article in their magazines and professional journals.
We were interested then to receive a communication from the Hertford St. Motor Hiring Co., Ltd., in which Mr. S. Janson pointed out that one of the drawings reproduced in the article mentioned, was incorporated with a design which he had registered some 12 months ago.
We found occasion to visit Mr. Janson in osd.er to go into the matter, and were certainly greatly struck with the similarity of the two designs. We disclaimed, however, any intention of deliberately plagiarizing Mr. Janson's drawing. The most probable explanation is that our artist visited St. Paul's Churchyard, and various other commercial travellers' rendezvous in London, for the purpose of securing sketches on the spot. No doubt, while so employed, he ran across one of the Hertford Street vehicles, and, struck with its general usefulness, embodied some of the improvements in the drawing which he produced for this journal.
While discussing the matter, we walked through this company's garrage in Hertford Street, and were somewhat surprised to find located in the heart of the West End a commodious and well-equipped garage capable of accommodating 300 machines. The great bulk of these motors are used for high-class private hire purposes. 1,14re were informed, however, that quite a large fleet of commercial travellers' broughams is maintained and run on contract by this progressive company.
We reproduce an illustration showing a representative view of part of this fleet, starting out at early morning to go down to the City in order to take aboard samples and travellers for the day's work. The company, we are informed, is responsible for the coinplate maintenance including the driver on all the vehicles.
We examined a batch of testimonials from various prominent business houses loeate.d in St. Paul's Churchyard while at the Hertford Street depot. A very general tone of satisfaction, both with the Napier machines used and with the running costs of the broughams, was evident in them