From Our Berlin Correspondent.
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For excursion trips in the Taunus district the Homburg Spa Administration has acquired a 14-seated Adler automobile, with open body_ and seats arranged tier-wise, after the fashion of the 1■LA.G. monsters now to be seen daily in Berlin.
According to the " Anreiger fur das Havelland," the Corporation of Spanclan, near Potsdam, purposes acquiring an automobile fire-pump. The city .a Rheydt, in the Rhine Province, has also resolved to purchase an additional automohila for the Fire Brigade. The Spandau
• Corporation will buy petrol-driven vehicle, the Rheydt an eleetromobile.
Intelligence from Berlin tends to foreshadow a Ilighly successful national exhibition there in the autumn, home firms evincing the liveliest interest in the concern. We understand that the see in the central field of the hall'
ould have let several times over, and that there is little space now available in the galleries. All the leading motor and motor-accessory firms in %Germany are exhibiting. The Daimler Co. at Coven try has also acquired space. Rubber companies will be strongly represented. Quite a column would be required to furnish a complete list of firms already in possession of space for this exhibition.
A Hungarian Motor Plough to be Manufactured by a Big Rheinish Firm.
Recently, the news flashed the round of Germany's press to the effect that the great Mannheim firm of Heinrich Lanz, whose specialities are agricultural appliances, locomobiles and the like, purposed taking up the InaUllfacture of aero engines (Flugmotoren). This would have been quite a radical departure for Lanz, and people who felt inclined to discredit the information subsequently had the satisfaction of discovering that a misprint accounted for the news, Messrs. Lanz's intention being to make motor ploughs (Pflugmotoren), and not aeroengines. The plough in question is the Koszegi, the invention of a Hungarian of that name. Viewed as a whole, it is a monstrously clumsy-looking construction, without compactness of mechanical arrangement, and covered with a corrugated roof. I wish simply to refer here to the leading idea of the construction as a eloughing instrument. The Hungarian fits a shaft behind the rear pair of road wheels, and mounts upon it concentrically a series of triangular shares with hoe-attachments at the angles of the shares, and the shaft is driven from the motor. Such is the leading idea : rotating hoes or shares, note, which cut their way forwards and downwards into the soil, and, ipso facto, tend to push the entire construction onwards, and assist the road wheels, whereas the ordinary plough, being towed, acts as a drag upon the automobile.
Turkish Prospects.
The. British Consul at Adrianople is of opinion that there is an opening for mechanical transport, preferably steam driven, in the greater part of the vilayet. The present state of the roads necessitates the employment of vehicles of considerable horse-power, but steps are being taken to bring about improvements in road conditions. It is now a stipulation by the vilayet authorities, that all such vehicles should be fitted with rubber tires.
German Municipalities Buying Autos.
German municipalities are fast coming out of their reserve in respect to the automobile, even towns of no particular importance cheerfully voting large RIME for self-propelled utility vehicles. For instance, Berriburg, in Anhalt, has just agreed to a vote of 21,200 for a fire-engine on up-to-date lines. And apropos up-to-date appliances, a Berlin paper recently published a photographic picture of what was presumably a first-aid engine, drawn by a couple of sleepy-looking nags. and " manned " by girls in uniform coats and German-band peak caps, that is alleged to do service in an English town, the name of which I have forgotten. Such a scene is thoroughly typical of the spirit of culpable frivolity in which some towns conceive their fireextinguishing arrangements. It is a gross anachronism. Are there any other English " fire-brigades " conducted on like comic-opera lines But to hark back to Germany -Rixdorf, Berlin's southeastern neighbour, has, I see, resolved upon acquiring a mechanical escape of the revolving tower pattern, with electromotors tor propulsion as well as for ladderextension and elevation work. I also notice that the Bavarian towns of Ansba.ch and Wiirzburg will shortly blossom forth with electrically-driven ambulance-wagons, while Munich, the capital, is going to lay out 2900 or so on a "knackerauto," such as Berlin purchased from the N.A.G. Co.
Backward Belgium.
The Belgian War Office possesses bui two motor lorries, namely, a 21-ton Daimler-Marientelde, with a four-cylinder engine of 28 h.p., and a Pipe of like carrying capacity and power. Both vehicles have given every satisfaction. "La Meuse," a Liege paper, newly published an article from a military expert, who accused the Belgian War Office of dilatoriness in respect of the acquisition of motor lorries. He says they are badly wanted in the Liege and Namur districts for supplying the forts with foodstuffs. At present, provisions are transported by private horse-wagons. The War Office, declares the expert, could save money by acquiring motor lorries and undertaking this transport.
Prussian Road Boards and Military Lorries.
Prussian Road Boards are manifesting a disposition to .get the users of subvention-lorries laid under a special tax towards the maintenance of public roads. They declare that the five-ton lorry, with its trailer for a like useful load, does a lot of damage to the country highways, and, from their standpoint, which happens not to he that of the War Offie.e., it would be desirable to reduce axle-pressure (ergo, commercial efficiency), or else impose upon such " trains a special road-tax. In view of the
military needs, however, the Road Boards lamentations will probably remain voices crying in the wilderness.
The Turkish Special Commission and the Berlin FireBrigade.
It has long been the custom to show Berlin visitors of note—at any rate, visitors of note in their representative capacity—Berlin's tireextinguishing arrangements. Well, in my opinion, these are certainly worth showing, especially the automobile sets, which are Captain Reichers pride. Berlin's recent visitors included some fez-becrowned gentlemen from Constantinople, in Germany for the purpose of studying the municipal institutions and factories of German 'infidel dogs." That they were impressed by what they saw at the stations does not surprise me. for I myself entertain a solid respect for the Berlin firebrigade and its go-ahead chief. Each member of that Turkish commission was presented with a nicely printed and illustrated brochure on Berlin's self-propelled fire-engines, with the text in French, containing a bumping advertisement for the firm which supplied the vehicles. Naturally, French being extensively spoken in the • Levant, the Turkish visitors were comparatively at home with the French text.. Should Constantinople, now throwing aside the dreamy laisser-faire policy of Fatalism, reform its fire-brigade (if it has one). I believe I could say which firm will get the orders. But as to Berlin's fire-brigade, may I remind your readers that in five years from now horses will have been practically banished from all the stations. Already, Berlin possesses half a dozen self-propelled electric sets. each consisting of four vehicles also 13 petrol-driven automobiles, one of them mounted with a Pittler pump. With a population exceeding two millions, Berlin's effective fire-brigade corns numbers 1,100 Men. and costs 2150,000 per annum.