New-York tribune., 1917-12-16
Truly a Thing OF
Infinite Variety,
The Motor Truck

Two news items in recent daily
issue Of The Tribune give point to the
"infnitc variety" Of the motor truck
One of the items related TO the govern
ment plan for a motor mail route be-
tween New York and Hartford. The
item read, in part;
The notice calls for sealed propo-
sails TO be received by February !,
1918. making bids for a motor mail
route between New York and Hart
ford. The cars will 90 to New YORK
by way OF Waterbury, Danbury and
White Plains. distance Of 1O5 miles.
the schedule calls for the motor
truck to leave Hartford at $3.50 IN the
morning, reaching New York not later
than $3.50 in the afternoon. Cans VIII
leave New York and arrive IN Hart
ford on the same schedule.
These trucks will not only carry
mail bags, bat the drivers sIe 20 be
required 70 sell stamps and receive
and deliver registered matter, and
also I'd take care of the registry oil
mail along the route. The contracts
arc to- run until June 80. 1921, and
the contractors are 10 be required to
furnish bonds Of $4,000.
And then, only few pages away
were these paragraphs, taken from the
story of the execution OF the negro sol
diers at San Antonio:
In the dark Of the night army
motor trucks conveyed the lumber
for the scaffold TO little clearing in
a lonely mesquite thicket on the big
government reservation, where the
negroes, convicted by court martial,
were to die.
And there, by the light Of boniires,
army engineers erected the scatfold 10
which. at 3 O'Clock in the morning,
other motor trucks hurried the con
demned negroes and the officers and
men of the military guard. 1t was
the army motor truck, the only Incl
dent which made this military eXecu-
ton different from previous ones,
that enabled the officers in charge 10
keep secret the time and the place Of
the hanging
Il was the army truck that SO
quickly obliterated all traces of the
execution and carried the dead bodies
to a place near BY, which is as indls-
tinguishable a the execution site, be-
fore official announcement had been
made that the order of the court mar
tial had been carried out and the men
had paid the ultimate penalty
Just about the time we had finished
Yith the reading cf these articles tho
mails brought in notice, about as fol
lows:
Many a business man has hurried
home late at nigat with one hand
firmly gripped around large wal
let Of greenbacks in one pocket and
his finger on the trigger of a SIX
shooter in another, merely because
he was unable TO deposit the money
in "a bank during banking hours and
there was no convenient place for
him TO safeguard it until the fol-
loving day.
Down in Philadelphia they have
overcome all this by means of bur
glsr-proof portable savings bank,
which calls at an office or other part
of the city as requested, places the
funds collected in steel safe and
lets the owner forget all about them
until the bank opens its doors the
next morning.
The portable savings bank is moth
ing more than an elaborately fur
nished Office operated on a White
three-quarter ton truck chassis by
taxicab company. Il has been used
by contractors, railways. paymasterS,
savings banks, theatres, lodges,
churcnes, cubs, societies and others
who wished to provide ssfekeeping
for sums Of money collected late at
night and outside OF regular banking
hours. The cost Of this service is
double regular taxi rates.
In most cases the money is passed
through a heavily barred receiving
window on the rear platform OF the
truck TO an attendant who sits at a
mahogany desk just inside. After II
has been counted and checked it is
transferred to large steel safe.
The truck is brilliantly lighted at
night. II has an electric fan for hot
summer days. and d special heater
connected with the exhaust Of the
truck engine, which keeps the attend
ant and his assistants warm in win
ter weather. A speaking tube is pro
yided for communicating with the
driver.