The age-herald., 1899-05-25
FUTURE OF THE
 AUTOMOBILE
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by F. A. EaHans EdIfof or th6 World,
 While France leads in the manufacture and use Of automobiles for pleasure and sport, England has not been slow to fol- low. America, however has but just en- tered the race. in which she starts very long way behind her flying competitors. the Frenchman and the Englishman This is history repeating itself; the story of the bicycle told over again. Eventually and shortly, too. America will overhaul and pass both France and England, and the shipment of American automobiles from this country to every other country in the world will be as profitable as doing the same thing with bicycles has been. Today not one American in a hundred knows Just what motor car' Is; how it Is propelledt what 1t costs or what arc its possIDilltles as thing of utility or of sport. Once even an lnkling of kRess Is gained the culL or automopiIishl will spring into puDfic fayor
 To choose either the English term of motor car'' or the Bremen ono Of auto mobile" starts the neH vehicle off with the purosn or very clumsy and entirely un- satisfactory name.
 The moro~ car now Is but the none too perfect beginning of 0 practical, speedy, economical and satisfactory solution of the transportation problem which has vaxed men ever since the first chariot wheels creaked and groaned over the alleged roads in faoled Ffoenecia-
 Today the building of mechanically driven carriages is in It's infantile and eS- pensive stages, and manufacturers are lucky if they secure competent workmen even at high wages. The consequence is that the millionaire and those who ape him are the purchasers Of most of the pleasure carriages now turned out To such an ex- tent is the demand in excess of the supply that until the present season the purchaser of carriage was asked to pay anywhere from $l,5O0 to s5,O00 therefor half cash in advance when he gRve his oxder the re- mainder six months later, when he received the vehicle. The same rule still prevails where popular motor vehicles ere the ones sought for.
 Once the owner of carriage which does not require an animal to drag 1t around and the world Is filled with new possibiii- ties Space is lessened, time Is saved and the making of a journey, be 1t great or small, becomes an eEhilarauns experience, to bs looked forward to with pleasure. To thoroughly appreciate this one must go to Paris, the birthplace and the home of the automobile. Fof a Parisian to be & "chaf- feur," 1. e.. a holder of license issued by the municipal council testifying that the recipient has appeared before that body and proved competent to manage ma chine-propelled vehicle Is an honor more SOHSuI oAlCA hOOcay Oy H1SACLAlttl I4lo1l any other.
 The chaffeur's certificate has become a sort of patent of up-to-dateness, a thing at all times dearer to the heart of Parisan than anything else. To sain this coveted bit of parchment Is no easy thing. Posi- ton, influence and wealth are all of little valuc the road to chafreurship must be travelled by all alike. First the woud-be automobilist must enter a school wherein each and every part of tho mechanism of an automobile Is explained. When this he's been thoroughly mastered the pupil is taken to large park wherein arc roads and streets similar to those which must eventually be ridden over by the chafreur. Upon these roadways at irregular intervals stationed life-szed limitations Of horses, dogs, foot passengers, cabs, wal gons and all such Instructions as are like ly to cumber the future chaffeurs right of way. Amid these various obstacles the machine must be guided at various speeds and under numerous adverse conditions. When all of this has been mastered a diploma Is granted, which later Is supple mented by a chaffeur's certificate if tho candidate successfully demonstrates suffi- cient ability before tho municipal council. Without such a certificate no one is allow ed to pilot an automobile over any thor oughfare Tn France.
 Roads and streets now built to withstand the harsh treatment they meet at the feet of millions of steel-shod animals and the steel-bound wheels of the clumsy vehicles animals drag along will be replaced by smooth and level highways. constructed to resist only the wearing possibilities result ing from the rubbeT-shod wheels of the various forms of mechanically propelled vehicles, which will silently, safely and swiftly convey both freight and passengers to their various destinations. Street-clean- ing will be reduced to the mere removal of dust and litter; filth and the flies it breeds will almost entirely disappear leaving everything healthier and happier in conse- quence. So near at hand is all this and more, too that Colonel Pope the father of American cycling, recently declared in 0 protest he made before the Boston Park commissioners against their short-sighted policy in ruling the automobile from the Boston parkways because it frightened the horses there that in ten years time the horse would be the offender and he would be barred from the very same roads be- cause he would be declared a nuisance. un- clean, and danger to public traffic, which traffic would within the coming decade become thing almost entirely of ma chinery.
 The future of automobiles as far as their domestic use is concerned is no longer a matter of speculation. The Whitney peo- pie, who control the storage-pate system, intend to run automobiles In connection with their street railway systems. Tn other words, there are certain streets where cars cannot and never will be al- lowed to run. Automobiles will carry traffic and freight on those streets. Tn fact, this is already being done on the othor side of the ocean.
 TO WATERFOWL
 William Cullen Bryant
 whither midst falling dew,