The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-10-02
VIVID DESCRIPTION OF
 AN AUTOMOBILE RACE
Robert crozier Long. in tbe New Yol

Robert crozier Long, in the New York
 American.
 1 HERE Is fat crescent moon; but 9 the sky and the trees that fringe
 the sky are inky black; and the telegraph wires cut the moon into sec tions and try to obscure 1t. There are hundred persons. and every one of them gropes his way in the darkness and asks In frightened voice where is somebody else. Some where in the impenetrabe blacknoss is an invisible megaphone. and through 1t the voice of an invisible man roars with tedious persistency:
 Where is Mir. Turner2''
 And the motor race which is dragging thousands of drowsy persons from bed is at it's most interesting moment half an hour before it has begun. The mystery and terrors of both worlds sesm concen- trated on this little patch of road. No body seems to know anything save that he is being hunted by apparently runaway cars; but to the senses nothing of these cars Is plain save rattle and glare. And every motor car flies frantically up, down or across the black road, hooting roaring and laundering at the whole universe to get out of It's way. Spectral pedestrians 1ostle. asking irritably: Don't you see where you're going?" and those who ask 1t most often know where they themselves are going the least
 A whole dozen hooded touring cars get into tumble and stick and suddenly hoot and explode and scatter. With a rattle as of artillery and more hooting and believing, something resembling a wheeled fortress cleaves through the jumbled touring cars and comes to a dead stop. It quivers and seems resolved to burst itself asunder, and out of it's broadside tubes come spouts of blue. sulphurous flame. The spouts of flame are so vivid that the moon seems pale and the black sky gray, and, as a dark red racing car becomes hazily visible, the hunted people look wise and shout, That is number two" that is number six" And in answer to their shouts comes the | sickly. strained voice of the megaphone still inquring:
 Where is MT. Turner?"
 Three boys swarm up telegraph post and squat on the crosstrees The moon Is fading fast into the sky, but the tele- graph wires still cut 1t into little slices It is daylight, and the hundred persons have multiplied to thousands. A black tape drawn across the road has already been trodden in parts under the brown soil, and behind this black tape the first car awaits the signal to start. It's four embrasures still spout flames, but the flames are pale and half yelled in slate colored smoke. The car itself Is slate colored, square-nosed and flat; It's in mates seem chiefly goggles and fiat caps, and these goggles and smooth black caps give to their faces the cruel unimpasslon- ed look of mediaeval inquisitors And two miutes after number one is off and lost in the distance, 1t Is followed by number two. and number two by number three-and so on to the end.
 The impression created by all these hur- rying cars Is the same there are spout ing embrasures In all, and drivers in tight caps and goggles who resembed Inquisitors. The only difference Is that some cars are red, and others gray. and that the front of No. Is shaped like a coffin, and that of No. denuded like skeleton. But all are heralded on their way by the same cries of Clear the coursef' the same fatal counting of num- bers and waving of blood-red flags. But before the last car starts 1t is broadest day, and while the first car sped untraced into gray obscurity, the last one disap- pears behind a deep green tree standing clear-cut against flushed sky.
 Just as there is one kind of start so there is but one kind of progress. The rib bon of road along which they speed dwin- dles at both ends into a sharp brown wedge At the peak of this wedge sudden