Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1907-06-06

SestANHseeS%AeNsse ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Indian native keeps pace with
the times. and brings his gods up to
date In a southern Indian town
last year the natives mounted the
god Ganesh upon bicycle, and thus
bore him during the time of a pre-
cession- But the people of northern
India have recently improved upon
this To the million and one gods of
the Hindu Pantheon another has been
added. Hindustan bows down before
the Spirit of the Age and halls its
incarnation in-the motor car. 1t
was extraordinary, but that was the
impression, first and last, made by
the recent descent of a cohort of
mysterious chariots upon the jungli
places of Upper India.
The Delhi-Bombay motor trials
may have been failure from the
point of view of dissatisfied competi-
tors and manufacturers. But to the
native they were as great success
from the point of view of the mar
velous as they we're an enjoyment
and social success to those who
took part in them.
"Ha, Sahib. This Motel-kyar. 1t is
godlike."
So speak an intelligent police Sc.
poy. To the villager it was an alb
solute god, to be worshiped as such;
and he salaamed profoundly as 1t
whizzed by.
In the neighbodhood OF large cities
like Bomboy and Calcutta, where the
motor car is no longer a sight of
novelty, the native is inclined to con-
denim it as device of the devil In
that he is not behind his Aryan
brother Of the west, and for much
the same reasons. The"devil wagon"
Is compelling him to hurriedly change
his habits. Before the hcot and the
rush of this latest creation of the
mad Sahibs.' he finds that he must
skip aside. He can no longer wan
der aimlessly all over the roadway. A
habit of contemplation has to give
place to one Of activity. And the
town-bred native of the lower order
does not like it. OF the man who
tried to hustle the east, we are told
that only a spot of grease remained.
But where he failed the motor car
has succeeded. 1t is hustling the
East to good purpose, for since its
advent in Bombay. now several years,
only three accidents to pedestrian
natives have been ascribed to it.
This is at once testimony to the re-
spect which it has created among a
people notoriously careless Of the
dangers of crowded road traffic, and
to the skill and ease with which the
automobile is controlled.
But through the greater part OF the
country traversed by the cars dur
ing the trials the motor was a new
revelation, and it created an undoubt-
ed sensation. The Grand Trunk
road, that wonderful highway which
stretches through Northern India,
eclipsed in excellence by no other
road in the world, saw a new and
strange triumph of locomotion. Re-
markable as have been the cavalcades
that have passed along that road in
the course of its history, no scene
could have appeared more like visi-
tation of the gods than the sudden
passage of a crowd of throbbing
vehicles impelled by some mighty un-
seen force, that sent them speeding
onward as fast as the ag-ghari of the
railway. 1t is not difficult to imagine
the impression made by the thirty
three cars and their weird occupants
upon simple villagers and half-wild
tribes gathered along the route The
order of the Sirkar had gone forth
that the road was to be kept clear of
all traffic, and the Injunction was
strictly obeyed. to the great joy of
the motorists Nowhere but in India
could such result have been obtained
with so small an array of policemen
keeping the course. But if the Sirkars
hookman had checked the wayward-
ness of Indian traffic, it hal also ARGUS
ed the curiosity of the people Orders
to suspend traffic do not create com
ment in India, but what were these
mysterious CHARTS of which strange
stories were told? In the neighbor-
hood OF villages the whole populace
turned out to see. and where the road
passed through sparsely inhabited
tracts crowds of folks encamped by the
wayside to wait for the coming of
the cars. And as they flew by,
what a sight the faces of the people
revealed! The educated in the vicinity
|of large towns cheered and even
threw flowers at the cars. But the
less instructed were silent. and
gazed with wide, almost affrighted.
eyes at the machines hunming BY.
All salaamed profoundly. many hur.
riedly touched the earth. and then