The record-union., 1897-01-02
MOTOR CARRIAGES.
Likely to Become an Important Factor
in Transportation.

There are two different ways of look
ing at motor carriages-the business
way and the pleasurable way For the
moment, at all events, it is the former
that seems to have the greater future
before it. Notwithstanding the i'm
mense extension Of railways, there are
still large tracts of country in which
the sound Of the passing engines is
either not heard at all or heard but
very family. The slow moving wagon
Is still the only means of carrying goods
to market. Here, if there be anything
IN vendors assurances, is a field for the
new industry, which can be worked
With great profit. Every kind of agri-
cultural produce will be heaped upon
motor wagons, and that large item in
the cost of farming which is concerned
with the management and care of
horses will be suppressed. The motor
wagon, or the motor which is to draw
the wagon, will be loaded as opportu-
nifty offers, and then will start for the
distant town or station with no more
outlay in labor than the wages of the
man who sees that the power, whatever
1t is, is in working order, and that the
In one point, however, the expecta-
tions of farmers have been disappoint-
ed. They used to fancy that the motor
car, when it came, would carry behind
1t a long train of loaded wagons, col
lected, perhaps, from half a score of
farms, and drawn at a very small cost
to each owner. For the present, at all
events, this hope must remain unreal
lied. The regulations of the local gov
erDment board apply only to motors
mot used for the purpose of drawing
more than one vehicle" The object of
this limitation is obvious. One heavy
wagon may be well under the control
of the man who is driving the motor;
but half a dozen heavy wagons, loosely
coupled together, would be like the un-
ma nageable tail of kite. They would
spread over the road at different an
giles and move with an impetus vary
ing with their weight The driver
might have his attention fixed on some
obstacle in front of him, and mean
while some member of his unruly flock
would be making itself into worse OBJ
stacle in the rear. At the same time
the limitation which this necessary pro-
vision will place on the utility of the
new invention is exceedingly great. So
long as a motor car can only draw one
vehicle the extension Of the carrying
industry to which many people had
looked forward cannot be realized
Each farmer must have his own motors
in a number determined by the amount
of produce he has to send to market
But what is really wanted in many
parts of the country is a cooperative
motor-a motor which shall go about
the villages and pick up a wagon here
and a cart there, and so put large farm
ers and small farmers on a level in re-
gard to the carriage of their goods
That this is impossible now we can
quite see, but it may not be always i'm
poSsible 1t may not, that is be be-
beyond the power of science to devise a
kind of vehicle, or mode of coupling
vehicles together, which shall make it
safe to attach many to the same motor,
even on an ordinary road. There will
be abundant stimulus to the ingenuity
of inventors in the large profits that
might be made by any one who put an
end to what is for the moment an in
superable difficulty.-London Spectator.