Culled from Contemporaries.
Page 18
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A Selected Collection of Extracts from the British and Foreign Press.
Underground to Anywhere.
Baltimore.—Every day sees another most novel use for the automobile, and a " stunt " pulled off here lately Ought to rank among the very novel. This was on the occasion of an inspection of the city's new trunk sewer. Preceded by Mayor Mahool in a \Vinton, nu less than 16 automobiles made the six-mile trip, the way being lighted by powerful searchlights.— " The Automobile," New York.
The Poetry (?) of Road Making.
The elements with which the road inginaer contends are alive. Snow and wind together is a live thing. If it conies prowling on to our roads we suck the life out of it ba cunningly devised eddies, the wind breathes tiff, the dead snow lies packed against the hedges and bushes. If it comes raging along the road. in spite of our fences, the best plan is to leave a place for it. to run out—Reginald Ryves in The Surveyor."
The Wish is Father to the Thought.
" Hitherto the pettily fare has been looked upon as the fnickbune of our British tramway systems, but we now seem to be drifting into lower regions," said Mr. A. L. C. Fell (manager of the L.C.C. tramways, at the Municipal Tramways Association Conference in
London recently As president of the conference Mr. Fell advocated through bookings between all railways and tramways, and he predicted that 23 years hence " rare specimees of an eatraordinary vehicle called the motor-omnibus " will be found in South Kensington Meseum.—" Th l ening ,Nee.s.London.
The Morbid Click of a Motor Valve.
Li a recent issue I ti The Lancet " I wrote about the similarity between madical and motor diagnosis (if I may use the elliptic phrase!, and since then I have had a copy of 1' COMMERCIAL COMMERCIAL MOTOR, in which the Ilse of the stethoscope is advocated for the location of motor mechanical faults. The author, who is a " motor physician." and has to maintain a considerable fleet of commercial motor vehicles in running order, states that he finds a stethoscope specially adapted for finding faults in machinery. By its aid he is able to tell if a motor valve is cksing, correctly, the morbid click being as marked as the diseased one in a case of mitral regurgitation. The grating of a broken piston ring, defective pump vanes, loose brasses, fractured balls in a ball race. faulty bearings, the ticking of " shorts .in a coil, and Inane other troubles he has by this means 'detected without having to dismantle the part. Just after reading this article I came across a multi-cylinder car in which the explosions were erratic, and with the stethoscope I speedily discovered the cause, which was an internal " short " on the coil of No. 3 cylinder.—C. T. W. Hirsch in " The Lancet." Motor Fire-brigade Equipment.
The value of motor fire-engines grows as the distance to the fire increases. . . . It costs more than three times as much to maintain horse-drawn equipment as fur motor apparatus.—" The Commercial Vehicle," New York.
Free Bones.
The Bow Street magistrate has held that omnibus companies have no power to charge fares for carrying dogs. In canine circles it is considered that this decision does not go far enough. Seeing how the .interior of the vehicle gains in beauty and interest from the presence of these pretty creatures, it is thought that they should be supplied with free bones during the journey.—" Punch."
Not-Pne but Four Trafalgar Squares.
The Scotland 11 examinatiun which
would-be taxicab drivers have to undergo in the knowledge of Loudon is no mere mutter of form. " If." asked the inquisitor recently ut a candidate, " a fare hails you in Trafalgar Square, and asks to be driven to Trafalgar Square, what would you do? " " I should drive him round a 'bit, and drop him on the other side of the square," replied the candidate. And he was turned down. For he did not know that London has three Trafalgar Squares besides the finest site in Europe —one in Camberwell, one in Chelsea, and one in Stepttey.—"The Daily Chronicle."
While Nero Fiddles.
(Th n lOti A of IA.. Southampton Fire luu beer, //hPd because.
-motor Hk exceeded the tint ;t.)
The still alarm that agitates the wires Shrilly disturbs the bright, red-engined station.
Zeal to be on the spot each fireman fires To quell the conflagration.
Out with the engine! Crank her up, and start !
Each lamp's alight—no time to stop and trim it.
Bat, Boys of the Brigade, RO quick and smart,
Observe the local limit.
Some mansion burns, with treasured heirlooms stored ; Or some snug farmstead, timbered, thatched and lowly ; Some factory flames—bA speed must be ignored; Make haste, hut make haste slowly !
Stifled with smoke, a family is seen
Cut off by flames that leap at their top storey.
Rescue them, quick, but do not contravene
The signpost monitory !
Such is the Bumbled antimotorite, O brazen-helmeted and hose-armed hero Fad-Limits are at ninety, Fahrenheit, And Common Settee at Zero.
So fiddles Nero.—" F.G." in " The Motor."
The Taxicab as Educationist.
If it were possible to get together all the people who, during the next 12 months, will be purchasers of ears for the first time, there is no doubt, in apportioning the influences which helped them to the decision to become motorists, the taxicab will take a good deal of the credit.—" The Australian Motorist."
Frightened of the Hansom.
It is almost pathetic to see the frantic efforts that are now being made to save the London hansom-cab from extinction. If those who are connected with the trade had shown reasonable enterprise and flexibility years ago there might have been a different tale to tell, but it is rather late in the day to hope to keep the hansom in existeace by instituting sixpenny fares or even introducing the taximeter. The motorcab has gained possession of the held. Indeed, people only now fully realize what a dangerous vehicle the old hansom may be to the " fare." When it was the familiar means of getting about quickly its peculiarities were not noticed so much, but now that the motor-cab has come to stay there are many people who have become too nervous to use the hansom. The oldfashioned cab-driver, with his beery face and his great command of language, has been nearly wiped out. Some people mourn his disappearance. The Majority do not.—" The Western Mail," Cardiff.
A Tip Worth Noting.
The taxicab of to-day is not the taxicab of yesterday. Already a change has came about, and that is not a change fur the better. We are not referring to any structural changes in the cab itself. . . . The chauffeur is much what he always was. . . . What does, however, distinguish the later from the earlier taxicab is the exceedingly bad habit of the " pourboire," or tip, which has grown up with it. Originally the taxicab was to free us from all the evils attendant upon the taking of hansoms or
fourwheelers. . Here was at last a cab which travelled a distance and recorded it exactly, making automatically its own contract between driver and fare. We promised ourselves not only the rather painful pleasure of realizing how often and how much we had been used to overpay cabmen, but also the pleasure of being driven here, there, and everywhere in comfort and without dispute. The taximeter would register a precise amount. We should pay it. There could be no question about it. The driver—an independent, high-souled chauffeur, not a poor fellow whose moral sense and selfrespect had been warped and withered by the ridiculous indulgence of the public in a cheap form of unreal benevolence— would be wreathed in smiles. And all would be ,79.y and joyous. But what has happened? Before the taxicab has been with us lung the old over-payment system is strongly in force. Everyone gives taxicab drivers a good deal more than the legal fare. . . . We pay More for the measured mile and quite as much for the civil smile.—" The Evening Standard."