Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1910-09-02
LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE
Autom obile Politeness.

Two nice gentlemen popped over the
hill suddenly in their automobile, with
no warning signal, and came booming
down in the face of lady and her
daughter, driving horse that is afraid
of automobiles, and was specially
frightened by the suddenness of the
meeting and shot out of the road, yet
these gentlemen Stacked speed but lit
tie, if any, turned out of the road little,
if any, and offered no assistance, of
course. The lady driving could not
possibly signal them to stop and keep
any control of the horse as it was easy
enough for the two gentlemen to see.
Being gentlemen they were of course
polite in their way and their way was no
doubt new way and their polteness a
new kind, or in other words, an auto
mobile politeness. The automobile gen.
tleman is not always of course of exact
ly the same kind and quality, and occa-
sionally it is some person of the ordin-
airy and more ancient class of pilgrims
who have passed the memory of man,
used the public highway not as if they
had any private monopoly of the public,
who, to the relief of the public has the
auto in charge But such belong not
to the true auto fraternity with polite
ness of their own.
A little further along these two gen
| tlemen, of automobile politeness, met a
man and lady in a buggy, with a
horse not afraid of autos, and turned
out, and stopped their machine. 1t is,
of course, very gentlemanly for gentle
men to pay due Difference to a gentle
man, rather than to a lady, provided
they are automobile gentlemen.
If other people should presume to
continue to claim any rights to the pub
| lie highway, the truly automobile gen.
tlemen might be justified in withdraw
ing in disgust, and in buying a right of
way and building a road of their own,
and running it exclusively at their own
expense and for their own benefit. If,
| however, the strictly automobile gentle
men condescendingly continue to share
the dust of travel with other, and COM
mon people, it is quite important to
know whether such kind of gentlemen
are required by the law of the State to
signal their royal approach, slack their
speed, and give half the road to hum
bier conveyances in passing or especial
ly to helpless women with frightened
horse.
The common laboring man, in an
honest business, would, of course, tip
over his load, wreck his team, risk
and, if necessary, sacrifice his own life
to save a helpless woman from serious
danger without imagining himself half
hero
But the pleasure-seeking knight of
true automobile honor rides the happy
car of the idolater, in which murder is a
virtue, and crime an honor, and run
ming down the helpless an added zest to
fascinating experience which, OF
course, the slow Flooding, every day
working, antiquated people are incapa-
BILE of approaching. What expert OF
the art in any line of pleasure seeking,
whether mercenary, icentlous, intoXi-
eating, gambling, sensual, athletic, OF
any other practice which may or may
not be named would close saloon, OF
gambling den, or kindred resort, or ex-
citing game of base ball, or football, OF
desist from any other so-called "sport, "
or check the speed of his favorite auto
in even an ordinary race to beat his
own time, just merely to avoid the risk
of life, or the actual loss of life.
Neither mailman or crazy man are
adequate terms for the pleasure-seeker.
However obliging, worthy and reliable
the normal man may be, the intoxicated
man is never trustworthy, and it seems
not to make the greatest difference
whether he is intoxicated with mar
cotics, or some other nectar, or ath-
letics, or automobiles. In either case