The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-11-18

me in like spirit, also frothing, and ave
assured me that no children Of theirs should
willingly be offered up to this Moloch Of the
twentieth century.
And then we nave retired to our lawn
moving or our leaf raking and the froth
has dried Of u lips.
We look on Scotland as a land Of rigid
morality and potent whiskey. We do not
think OF it as a law breaking country. We
have allowed ourselves to be lectured by
Bobbie Burns and Thomas Carlyle and
we look to Scotland for examples OF high
living.
But how travel broadens the mind and re-
moves the binders from the eyesl
When l reached Scotland I fell a victim
to the charms OF Aaw breaking.
1t came about in this way:
Knowing my host to be a Freekirker and
a law abiding a when he asked me II l
would mote. I beamed.
thought that q little ten miles an hou
would be good for the liver and would en-
able me to see more of Scotland than l could
see from a hanson or even the top OF a
double decker.
What happened to the simple Jerseyman-
not born there, you understand-who was
in the habit Of frothing at the mouth at
sight Of speeding motors?
Why almost at the moment OF stepping
into the dark green machine the lust for
speed was born in me and / longed to SEQ
what my host could do in the little matter
of Scotch law breaking.
l was afraid that he didn't have it.
l mean the lust for speed.
But he did, hank fortune. Not inn
moderately, but stimulatingly.
Oh. how l frothed at the mouth when saw
the poor fools in villages who would persist
in getting in our wayl Why didn't they
leave the road free to us? We ran a risk OF
puncturing our tires on them, for your
Scotchman IL apt TO be sharp visaged.
Ten, twenty, thirty. forty, hfty, sixty.
seventy, eighty, ninety, I dare say a hum
dred miles an hour we went. What mat
tered anything but the eating Of space?
l roared with joy. l dared people to
come out and be run over. We always did
the job 80 quickly that most of them didn't
know what had happened. The wind
famed my cheeks so vibratingly that it
played tunes in my hair.
We passed law-abiding people going along
at a foolish fifteen miles an housekeeping
like snails escaping from Ph~iladelphians-
and we jeered at them. What's the use of
riding in a motor if you've got to observe
laws?
Once a man who was going only about
forty miles an hour wouldn't get out of our
way and we tumbled him over a clin and
vent on our way without looking back.
l who all my life had gone out Of my way
to find laws that I might keep them was now
melting my host to break every law he could
think OF.
The Highlands dashed past us, peak
succeeding unto peak. and We had no sooner
manned a drove Of sheep than we were
tossing Highland cattle Of the Rosa Bon
heur type over stone fences.
Oh. it was glorious. and when it was all
over and we had-eo my host told meow
cred three hundred or less miles in three
hours or less, | felt exultant, I felt like David
when he slew his 10, OOO-although we had
not lone anything like that. l had dened
the law in Scotland and l didn't care who
knew il.
But now that l am home again am | one
Of the speeders? No. 1 do not own an au-
tomobIle and / expect to sit on my piazza
and froth at the mouth "a OF yore when
these uncomfortable speed fends pass
my house above the limit set down in Jersey
law.
| have had my middle aged fling and l
am now a law abiding citizen once more.
But / shall not soon forget the way we tore
around village corners and hurled chickens
into second story windows or sent beldams
scurrying into picturesque alleys, or
whipped wheels OF Of cheaply constructed
motors.
1t was splendid because it was so Iawless,
on1 .uoa not in Vnxy naftua land RUf 4
don't see how my host dared do il.
He lived there.