Meals are sent out in motor-vans by the London Distributing Kitchen Company from its well-equipped premises near the Army and Navy Stores, the breakfasts, luncheons, and dinners being placed in air-tight baskets in aluminium receptacles. In Manchester, for some time past, “meals by motor” have been an accomplished fact, and most popular and lucrative the scheme has proved.
Motoring has its romantic side. For instance, in France—the birthplace of the automobile—abduction by motor has been initiated, and our lively neighbours may possibly contemplate the revival of that mediæval custom of wedlock by force. This young lady, however, seems to have been a not unwilling party to the transaction.
Going to school by motor has also been made practicable across the Channel. For some months the Ecole Lacordaire, in Paris, has been running a Serpollet steam omnibus, which collects the pupils and conveys them to and from the school. The day’s run gives a total of sixty miles. Monsieur Serpollet has lately carried out an interesting test with the vehicle. He made a run of sixty miles with twelve passengers, and the cost for petrol was 1s. 2d. per passenger, or rather more than four miles for a penny. The omnibus averaged eighteen miles an hour.[8]
CHAPTER XVII
HORSELESS VEHICLES, ELECTRICAL AND OTHERWISE (continued)
SPEED OF MOTOR-CARS
TO motorists the pressing question of the day is speed. In England the motor-car was in its infancy when the present law came into force. Before its birth, no mechanically propelled carriage could travel along the highway faster than four miles an hour; but six years ago a determined attempt was made to adapt the law to the exigencies of modern traffic. Fourteen miles an hour was decided upon as the maximum speed, and the Local Government Board subsequently reduced the limit to twelve miles. But these regulations are now out of date.
A few years ago there was a great outcry against cycle speeds. That has died out, not because cyclists ride more slowly, but because the public has come to realise that, with a readily controllable vehicle like the bicycle, the greater speeds are not dangerous. Similarly the public is now much exercised in mind concerning speeds of twenty to twenty-five miles an hour by motor-cars. It will not be long before they realise that these velocities are quite safe under certain conditions, and that the motor-car might almost under any circumstances be allowed to travel twice as fast as a horse, indeed even faster. It is said that this year the speed of the motor-car is expected to approach a hundred miles an hour. The Hon. C. S. Rolls came very near to attaining it at Welbeck last February, when he made an attempt on the flying kilometre record. The best of four runs gave the time of 27 seconds, which is a speed of 82⅘ miles per hour, and 1⅕ seconds better than Mr. Jarrott’s run over this course last year. Whether it will rank as a world’s record is not certain, as the road in the Duke of Portland’s park has a slight favouring gradient. The French official record on the Dourdan road is twenty-nine seconds, a speed of seventy-seven miles per hour, accomplished by both Fournier and Augières. Mr. Rolls drove an 80 horse-power Mors, which he entered for the Paris-Madrid race.
Estimates of speed differ in the most extraordinary degree, and the Hon. J. Scott-Montagu gave to the Car the following humorous table, the result of an inquiry at a police court:—
| Miles. | |
| “Private opinion of mechanic in charge | 12 |
| His opinion when talking to his friends | 20 |
| His opinion when in court | 8 |
| Policeman’s private opinion | 14 |
| Policeman’s opinion in court | 28 |
| Farmer’s opinion when a pony was frightened | 50 |
| Maker’s guaranteed speed | 16 |
| Actual speed | 10” |