New-York tribune., 1909-06-20
In the English Magazines for June
EARLY Days of the Motor VehicIe-A Sultans Caprices
"A Leopard Hunt.
-,e1Y DAYS OF THE MOTOR VEHICLE

.pry DAYS OF THE MOTOR VEHICLE
-. .,,an seventy years have passed since
-.eesfrl attempt made to conduct road
e.+47c without the use of animal power. A few
- age the writer, in conversation with the
S,ta Sir Frederick Bramweu- was assured by MIN
'LGo+ n his boyhOOd he had frequently been per-
tired as treat to IiGe upon Hancocks steam
zach which IN the early sos piled regularly
S+T-eer the city and Paddington. then village
= the outskirts CT London. Sir Frederick was
Vie 10 say OF il that it did a regular and eff
-1.r+ service. Steam coaches ran also between
Tondon ard Bath and London and Birmingham,
- between Gloucester and Cheltenham at an
eya-sce speed Of ten miles an hour. And in
S.o+isnd a service was established between Glas-
- and Paisley So efficient was the work
Zone and so great was the promise held out OF
-sefilness to the community, that the opinion Of
. Parliamentary committee highly favorable to
-,ochsniCal transit is embodied in a blue book
~ the period, in which evidence as to the feast
g,if-v and undoubted value Of such road locOmo-
SION stands recorded a lasting testimony to the
ssr+ that if such transit died out that time it
Ires not because Of any failure of the means
crowded but only because the landed and the
-qfroad combination. blind to their own inter
ests set up an opposition which was too power
frl for the promoters OF the novel and success
<nI vehicles The coming together of these two
was a reconciliation of the Plate and Herod
tvpe There was cordial and implacable hatred
between them. but they forgot for the time their
differences. and went hand in hand in their un-
compromising hostility TO power traction on
roads In Parliament they succeeded in impos-
ing prohibitive tolls, such as f2 SIS for the single
iournev and in the country they dug rutS in
The roads here and piled up large stones on
Them there destroy the coaches without re-
gard 10 the risk Of killing the travellers.
These tactics were successful. The result has
been that since then all property not near rail-
way lines has been handicapped commercially,
and the railway companies have spent millions
Of pounds sterling unsatisfactory and often
unremUneratiye branches, giving in many cases
sn inefficient and slow service and necessitat-
ing an incredible waste Of money in transferring
goods from cart TO train. and again from train
70 cart the Carting and the breaking of bulk
often causing much injury TO goods and making
the tine OF transit over distances up to fifty or
sixty miles great If the journey had been
made by road
Nothing more was heard Of mechanical road
propulsion until Thompson. in Edinburgh. intro
rubber tires. and fer short time a steam omni
and Leith in the SOS II was soon. however,
hustled of the road by the police as being an
Illegal intruder. and lay long derelict in a shed
IN Leith Walk Thompson's premature death
having removed the presiding spirit without
whose energy things could not he pushed TO sue
cess
Thus twice al intervals OF twenty-five years
was mechanical traction crushed out Of exist
ence because the laudatOr temporis acti pre-
vailed and vested interests overcame in the
struggle which made TO introduce improve
nnent- For fifty years power traction was lin
fed IN Britain TO two and half miles an hour,
every vehicle being required TO have three men
IN attendance one Of them carrying red flag
forty Yards aheaGi-Sir J. H a. Macdonald, in
Chambers's Journal