The Washington herald., 1911-03-12

fascination that the car has for one,
the pleasure of listening to the hum of
the perfectly timed motor as while the
road Unfolds like a white ribbon ahead
: more entertainingly than any other per-
son. The pride of the mastery of time
and space and the ability Ito wink at
'Omer down the road - are all told Mr.
kiPling's complete story on why Like
Motoring is given here:
Why He Likes Motoring.
Il like motoring because I have suf-
tered for its sake. I began years ago
in the days of tube igniuon. when six
horsepower was reckoned fair allowance
for a touring car, and fifteen miles an
hour was something to talk about. My
aEonies, shames, delays, RACES. chills,
parboilings, road walkings, water draw
ings. burns, and starvations, at which
you laugh-in the Kinfauns castle in
lO0-alI went to make a car to-day safe
and comfortable. If there were no dogs
there would be no Vivisection and peo-
pie would still be treated on the lines of
Calen and Avicenna- ANY fool can in
vent anything. any fool can wait to
buy the invention when it is thoroughly
perfected; but the men to reverence, to
admire, to write odes and erect statues
To are those PrometheUses ani Ixions
CmaniaCs, you used TO call us) who chase
the inchoate idea to fixity up and down
the kings highway with their red light
shoulders TO the wheel.
Yes: / love because ! have suffered
Suffered. as I now see, in the cause of
humanity.
Help to Character.
You ask now the motor has helped
ne? The early Neo-Galhc car did no
thought. l have heard men of the new
Eeneration-late Comers TO a game made
casy-use language over = faulty spark
or a stuck valve that would almost dis
grace the childish golfer My mouth was
emptied Of these vanities long ago. I
spend three hours in dark and cold
with a leaky tube that needs attention
every 200 yards, and a virgin may listen
70 my every word. But of the moral
aspect Of things hereafter.
Nowadays, my car helps me to live al
a decent distance from any town without
sacrificing what house agents call the
amenities l am rid of the whole tribe
Of COachmen. saddiers, corn-dealers,
smiths. and vets. can catch me a train
anywhere within fifteen miles when l
please, and not when the Jennys hind leg
or Jacks cough is better; and if l visit,
do so as free agent, making my own
arrangements IOr coming and going
In all crOSs-COuntry Journeys I am from
one to four hours quicker than the local
train service. On main line routes hold
my Own-in greater comfort than the
railways can give me-up to forty miles
England n New Discovery.
But the chief end of my car, so far
as I am concerned. is the discovery OF
England. To me it is a land full OF
stupefying marvels and mysteries: and a
day in the car in an English county is a
day in some fairy museum where all the
exhibits are alive and real and yet none
the less delightfully."- mixed up with books
For instance, in six hours, I can go from
the land of the Ingoldsby Legends by
way of the Norman Conquest and 'Ba-
rOns War into Richard Jeffries' count
try, and so through the Regency, one of
Arthur YOung's less known tours, and
Celias ArbOur. into Gilbert Whites ter
ritory. Horses, after all. are only horses;
but the car is time-maChine on which
one can slide from one century to an
other at no more trouble than the push
ing forward of a lever. On a morning I
have seen the assizes, javelinmen and
all, come into a cathedral town: by noon
! was skirting a new-built convent for
expelled French nuns: before sundown
sea Bill. and after dark ! nearly broke
foXs back on a Roman road. You who
were born and bred in the land naturally
take such tritieS for granted, but to me
ii is still miraculous that If l want petrol
in hurry I must either pass the place !
where Sir John Lade lived. or the garden
where Jack Cade was killed. In Africa
one has only to put the miles under and
go on, but England the dead. twelve
coffins deep, clutch hold of my wheels at |
every turn, till l sometimes wonder that I
the very road does not bleed. That is the
real joy of motoring-the exploration Of
this amazing England.
The Moral Aspect of Motoring.
But to revert to the moral aspect. |
Have you noticed how the motor is the
most efficient temperance advocate and
the only education act at present en-
forced in Great Britain? A horse in
most harnesses does the work for which
his driver is paid, and when the man is
more than usually drunk the beast will
steer him home. No so the car. She de-
mands OF her driver a certain standard
of education, the capacity OF unfickering
attention. and absolute sobriety. Failure
to comply with her indent means death,
mutilation, or fine in shape of a heavy
repair bill. There is no argument; there
is no concession; above all, there are no
carrots. She is a condition, not a theory.
Think what her presence, in registered
thousands, will mean to a nation which
has been laboriously trained never to ad- |
nit the existence OF a condition IL that |
condition conflicts or seems likely to con-
fiict with any one Of its theories!
Even now I see Improvement. There |
are on the twenty-odd miles which divide |
me from the nearest town westward |
thtrty-one or thirty-seven pubs In front |
of each l used to find at least two unat-
tended horses. Now, there are fewer |
beasts outside and those within are not |
so sodden.. They keep one ear I'D the /
road; they set down their tankards; they |
leap from the bar; they run to their \
horses heads They break, IL 1t be but |
for an instant, the habit of ages. What |
has wrought the change in our midst? /
Tracts? Blue ribbons? II is the car
the unexpected car around the corner
The Progress of the Years.
Il have seen carriers. awake and erect
on their seats by the hour, both reins in /
their hands and both eyes on their pair.
have seen the fat coachman OF the fat /
landaus and barouches that humble /
around the countryside visibIy driving |
a thing which. the horses attested, they |
had not done for years. / have seen the |
whole of hunting-held sit down and |
really ride their mounts. Some Of them |
did it very badly, but they all tried |
y