The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-02-05
Downright. 1899. /

Copyright 1899.
THE day of the horse is passing
away. Already the practical de-
monetiZation of the faithful
4 equine might be said to be taking
place, and before another CEN
fury shall have elapsed he may have be-
come a geological curiosity. His VEN
cradle bones will be seen mounted and
on exhibition in museums. The small
boy of the twentieth century will Won
der what sort of animal Equus cabal-
lus really was and will marvel at the
fact that he was once harnessed and
made to haul heavy loads.
The beginning of the end was in sight
when electricity first supplanted the
horse as a means of propulsion for
street cars. Then the bicycle came,
sprang at once into popular favor and
rendered still more limited the uses of
our once essential quadruped.
But now still greater changes are
taking place. The introduction of the
automobile on streets of American cit
les is slowly but surely driving out the
old fashioned hanson and the two horse
orougham, and now even the lorrie team
and the long overworked draft horse
are to become things that were.''
The recent formation of company in
New York city with a capital of some
800, 600 900 to exploit compressed air as
a motive power for all trucking and
carting business in Greater New York
shows still again how surely the reign
of the horse is passing away. He will
of course continue, for time at least,
IL
ing animal of the wealthy in the city
and the helpful friend of the more hum
BILE farmer in the country. But as time
goes on and urban population becomes
more and more dense it will be seen to
be even more necessary in order to OBJ
viate congestion of traffic in city streets
and to maintain a proper degree of san
itation and cleanliness to allow only
self propelling vehicles on the public
streets of our towns and cities.
The outcome of this will be a vast
improvement in the condition and
smoothness of all city streets, the abo-
lition of the Objectionable cobblestone
as paving material and the eliminate
of the ear piercing noises which now
make a pandemonium of the average
metropolitan thoroughfare
1t is true, motor vehicles for pleasure
traffic and business purposes have been
somewhat slow of adoption in this coun-
try. The horse has held his own here
with remarkable pertinacity, for it has
been in European cities, and particular
ly in Paris, that the automobile indus
try has fiourished to the greatest ex-
tent. The principal reason why Ameri-
cans have been in no undue haste to
adopt motor carriages is the fact that
mechanically these have not hitherto
been sufficiently developed to render
them acceptable for general use. The
motive power employed in most of them
has been unsatisfactory because of lack
OF efficiency in some cases and extrava-
CANT expense of operation in others
But American brains and American en-
ergy have been at work on the problem
Tor the last few years, with the result
that the objections referred to have
been practically removed
The general public, as rule. has not
the opportunity of seeing the gradual
and laborious approach to perfection of
any important mechanical invention
This same general public is usually as
founded at the miraculous appearance
OF some new wonder, While the men
who have been laboring for years to
bring about this apparent mechanical
miracle foresaw the inevitable long be-
fore the busy world had thought of such
thing. For some time now jokes have
been made about the passing of the
horse, but until the last year or so it
was never really thought that the pc
ricd of equine usefulness had so nearly
approached its close
1t was vaguely felt that changes
might come about in time, for the idea
OF mechanical instead of animal trac-
ton power is as old as the history of
human thought itself Even Homer
himself describes the god Vulcan as be-
ing engaged upon the construction of
a great hall on wheels, which he de-
scribes as self moving and wonderful. ;"
and Juno is made to command Vulcan
to create tripods which shall run bv
themselves. thus rendering better serv-
zee to the gods in their meetings on
Mount Olympus.
In the thirteenth century the English
philosopher Roger Bacon wrote in one
OF his works, They will make carriages
"hlch VIII run with the greatest imag-
Unable swiftness without any harnessed
beasts whatever"
Ihe earliest horseless carriage which is
preserved today is one now on exhibition
IN Paris at the Conservatoire des Aries
ct Meters. This machine was invented
by Cugnot in 1869 and was made to op-
crate by steam, the energy of which
was applied through two perpendicular
piston tubes. The principal reason per-
maps why the French steam automobile
was not brought to a state of compare
tive perfection during the last century
was the beginning of the revolution.
The turbulence which accompanied that
event naturally turned mems minds
from peaceful and civilizing pursuits to
thoughts of warfare and the deposing of