New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-09-30
Low Prices for Food
May Explain the
Heavy Traffic
By Enrol E. Hart

American motorists visited Canada
this summer in numbers twice AS great
as ever before. The receipts at the
few automobile hotels In Eastern Can
ada, the business at tho scattered ga
RACES and the records OF the customs
Offices all attest the fact.
The reasons for this marked increase
In the northward travel are not ap-
parent. The war appeals TO Americans
TO save gasolene seem 10 have fallen on
deaf ears, for the dark New York and
Massachusetts licenses wero as nu-
merous on Quebec roads as the white
homo number plates. And those all
pervasive yellow plates were there, too!
Ohio's munitions business must have
paid for sending thousands Of cars on
Canadian tours this year.
Cansds's roads certainly weren't the
attraction that drew Americans over
the line. Nor could war scenes have
been the magnet, for the war was pos
sibiy less conspicuous there than in
New York. Kilties we're drilling on
McGill University campus in Montreal
and in similar spaces in Quebec, but
there weren't nearly as many Of them
rs there were of our own khaki-clad
boys in Prospect, Central or Van Cort-
L.,
70 be seen on prices either. Hotels
we're, if anything, bit cheaper than in
the States, while the strict food regula-
tions Of the Dominion were of less Ct
feet than the voluntary abstentions of
New York and Massachusetts hos
tleries. After failing TO get beef in
American houses that had pledged
themselves to aid Hoover, one was as
tonished to find veal, of all things,
served in his Canadian hotel on d day
when the use Of beef was forbidden
under penalty Of 5000 fine.
Two things brought the war closer
TO the motorist in Canada than in the
States. One was the casualty list,
which bordered every newspaper bulle-
tin board with black. The other was
riot and rumors of riot in and about
Montreal over CONSUMPTION. While at
home one knew that the mary-nationcd
men of the draft were taking their
places in the great camps with cheer
ing and gayety, one could look out o.
the window Of the Hotel Windsor,
Montreal, and see a mob that was like
a bit from the French Revolution, tear
ing things to pieces in the streets be-
low over the mere passing Of a draft
bill. Then one was warned, too, not
10 speak Of conscription in the Eng
lish named but French inhabited towns
of Southwestern Quebec. The French
kabtants are the. opponents Of con
scription, for reasons the political
writers can enlarge on. The visit of
Joffre, which had been expected 10 stir
their feeling for La Belle France to
white heat, had fallen fiat after he had
lodged special service IN his honor
in Montrea's aged and beautiful
Church of Notre Dame and had finally
admitted that he worshipped IN the
Church of the Messiah-and so was no
Catholic. Vivian, too, was Protes-
tant, so the French mission failed TO
stir French Canadian hearts.
Returning after this detour to the
main subject of Canadian roads, it
must be remarked that for the most
part they're doubtful. That is, they're
disable in fine weather, but when it's an
all-rainy season, like the summer just
past, one is apt 10 need a bateau or
scow as a trailer If one Is TO cross the
clay country of Quebec.
There is one royal road into Eastern
Canada-the King Edwards route from
Rouse's Point-the prettiest place on
Lake Champlain-to Montreal. The
Cuidebooks say the route by Malone,
n. Y, is the shortest to Montreal, but,
uotorist, beware Having come up
from the Thousand Islands by the ex-
cellent roads through Gouverneur and
Potsdam, the writer was enticed into
irving the direct route to Montreal by
Huntington, Ormstown and La Prairie.
He crossed the border at Trout River
after the very obliging custom house
folks had given him his United States
out-certificate and his Canadian nicer
tifcatc, with its free permit for thirty
days stay, and after he had done a bit
of his own smuggling in those queerly
located stores that are set athwart the
international line close TO where 1t
angles over the north and south high
way. These stores carry two stocks,
American goods on the side of the
building marked United States, and
veritable British made" and Cana
dian made" goods on the other side. No
business of the storckeeper's as to
which country his goods walk out into
on the arms of his customers. "No
deliveries" is the sign in each emporium
of general merchandise. There must
be money in il, for there's q long line
of these enterprising establishments
zgzagging back from the road to the
forest.
Soon after crossing the border you
realize that New York's state roads
even those WORKOUT ones near White
Plains-are worth going back 10. First
it's a detour through a ploughed field IN
first speed-and lucky to get through
at tkat-then it's a session with the
deep, muddy holes in the clay roads.
One thinks fondly of the fellow at
Malone who said: "Canada's roads beat
these New York state roads all hol-
low" One pushes on over bad or in
different highways-and over one good
stretch that lasts just half a mile, be-
ing a new cement road too narrow for
two machines to pass and therefore as
exasperating and dangerous as the
nine -foot ribbon Of asphalt macadam
they call the Dixie Highway out in Hi
nois.
One pushes on until the distributor
of his ignition system, having gone