Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-09-15
HELD UP FORTY TIMES
But the Victim Lost Only His
Patience and SeIf-Respect.
MARYLAND'S HIGHWAY LAW
What It Did to an Unfortunate
Hotorist.
SOME RUSTIC HUM0RISTS
Held the Edge on the City Man in
the Auto and Insisted on Exer-
cising Their Rights.
MARYLAND'S HIGHWAY LAW
IE RUSTIC HUMoR1sTs
SOME

cising Their Rights.
You wouldn't suppose that a fellow
could be held up on the high roads and pub
lie pixies OF state like Maryland about
forty times in the course Of one afternoon,
would your" observed a Washington motor
list who is known by everybody. at the Au-
tomobile Club q few days ago. But that's
what happened to me in Maryland one day
last week. No. they didn't take anything
away from me except all of my patience
and most Of my self-respect. because they
weren't the predatory kind of holduppers.
They were just plain country folks who
knew that they had the bulge on me.
There's law or ordinance or statutory pro-
viso or township edict or something in a
good many of those Maryland counties
which requires anybody running any kind
Of a motor car to pull up to a full stop
when the driver of any sort OF an an
imal hitched to vehicle or any
human being mounted any kind OF an
animal holds up his or her hand upon the
approach of the motor car. That gives the
country folk OF Maryland a nudge on the
game that they have the fun of their lives
In working right up to the handle.
stop every time you see a hand belonging to
somebody In country vehicle go up the
owner of the hand just stopss at the nearest
country house with a telephone and tele-
phones to some constable along the road
you're taking. and the first thing you know
you're pinched by some aged representative
Of the law with whiskers in his ears and q
pound or so of tobacco in his facial orthce,
the Improvement Of the Maryland roads,
which need improvement. at that. The
farming people of Maryland don't like
motor cars or motor car people for shucks
and things they can do to you under the
law In one little afternoon in the way OF
sticking you up In your machine and max
ing you feel like mess OF burnt Cuttings
are something both keen and big.
Il traded cars with a fellow in Baltimore
one day last week. and l wanted to see how
his machine was going to behave. On the
road leading from Baltimore to Havre de
Grace there'e q squat. ancient inn. now
abandoned and falling into decay. that
sheltered Lafayette and other eminent ones
In the early days Of the republic. I'd al
ways wanted to have a peek at this old
shack and to take q snapshot at 1t, and SO
I started out, knowing nothing about the
peculiarities of the Maryland motoring
laws except the speed limit and the fact
that the motorist Is required to stop when
folks in horse-drawn vehicles held up the
hand. didn't think that the uplifted hand
thing would bother me any, and with my
wife and couple of her women friends in
the car set out, pretty jaunty.
The First Hoid-Up.
Hadn't been on the open road out of
Baltimore more than five minutes, and do
ing only about eight knots an hour, at
that. when I saw load OF hay looming
up around a turn. / was fixing to say
Howdy' and be pleasant with the one gallus
man sitting astride the wheel horse when,
ft,n Cov haxv oIo
Of him. | saw his hand shoot up. pulled
up quick. His horses were old and blinky
and looked as If they might have been used
In the quartermaster's department during
the Seminole war. My machine didn' I
bother them any more than an earthquake
instantly followed by tidal wave and a
crashing of glaciers would have, but the
man driving the load Of hay from the back
the same. Then he dug hts boot heels
into his horses sides and git-apped 'em,
and the load OF hay leisurely started, and
after a while the horses got alongside my
machine. and the hanky-pank on the wheel
horse sort o grinned at me and showed q
CLEAN of triumph in his yellowish eyes
and that first incident of being stuck up
was over.
II figured it that maybe this hay wagon
driver was Just mad bucolic wag and
that shouldn't really begrudge him a little
of the thing that he considered fun.
never dreamed that 1 was in for a whole
half day of that hold up thing or I'd have
turned back right there.
Three people in three different buggies
drawn by three different shambling aged
horses that wouldn't have batted an eye
II fourteen meteors had hit the ground right
in front Of them held me up during the next
nfteen minutes of the progress. All Of the
drivers were male persons well past middle
life. and they all just grinned at us as they
drove their sad, stumbling, weary old cay
uses by. Then it dawned upon me that this
a ryy1o md lof tnv,
good deal OF native idea of humor and that
was going to be the days Patsy. as it
were.
Next hold-up was operated by an old
of the empty cans in the back of her cart
was enough to scare any automobile, much
less any horse, but the gallery white bran
spotted old plug pulling the milk cart was
die standing up, and my motor car inter-
ested him no more than a shadow work
tidy would interest bullfrog.
Showed the Uplifted Palm. -
But the toothless crone driving the milk
cart showed me the uplifted hand, all the
same. and I had to shut off power and stop.
Then she slugged the old plug with the
piece of fence picket that she used for
urging purposes and as she went by her lips
curled away from her ancient gums and she
squeaked at me:
y
city PUPPIES he'd to, didn't you?'
Right then 1 concluded that 1 wasn't
going to be liked much less popular, in the
state of Maryland. and had the right dope,
too. By the time 1 got through with that
ride ! was confident that 1 couldn't be
elected dog-catcher anywhere in Maryland
Il I'd endow a hospital and a library in
every county 1 was city pup with a mo-
tor car, and that let me down and out with
the agricultural population of Maryland
Then, until I pulled into Beiair, one leg
of the journey, 1 was held up fourteen
times. mostly by drivers of farm wagons.
But II was on the run-crawl. mean to
say-from Belair out to the Havre de Grace
road that they fixed me with that uplifted
hand-gag.
ION the pike up near a place called Foun-
tain Green 1 came upon happy boy seated
in rattley wagon to which was ilitched
and miidewed jackass about
one hundred and nineteen years of age. The
jackass wasn't moving. He was taking a
rest under the shade Of a locust tree, the
branches of which overhung the road. and
he was putting in the resting time by
munching poison ivy and such like from
a1apo ha ditch Rut the yappy bow held