In the realm of invention and discovery the period under review was richer in achievements than any of those dealt with in the preceding volumes. Again and again imaginative or fantastic forecast was outdone by reality. Road traffic was revolutionized by the coming and rapid development of the motor. Space and distance were annihilated by man's conquest of the air and the introduction of wireless telegraphy. Scientific research, by the discovery of X-rays and new elements, more than equalled the pretensions of mediæval thaumaturgists. The cinematograph added a new entertainment and terror to life. The submarine, it is true, dated from the time of the American Civil war, but its improvements clearly foreshadowed the formidable part it was destined to play in the Great War. The long and splendid annals of Arctic and Antarctic explorations were crowned by the exploits of Peary and Amundsen and our own heroic Scott. On this side of the New Order, as on others, Punch supplies a commentary which, though necessarily incomplete and irregular, is invariably animated and often instructive.
DECIDEDLY UNCOMFORTABLE
Awkward position of Mr. Newfangle, who, when halfway up a steep hill, discovers by the sudden retrograde movement of the autocar that the motor has become exhausted.
Motors and Motorists
To begin with terra firma, one finds an early illustration of the motor in 1895, when the Hackney observes to the Shire-horse: "Look here, friend Dobbin, I'll be shod if they won't do away with us altogether some of these days." The road in the picture is crowded with bicyclists, male and female, with a traction engine and a "patent road locomotive" of the waggonette type in the foreground. In 1896 the unsettled nomenclature of this "new monstrosity from France" is shown by the various alternative names—autocar, automobile, etc.—gradually settling down to motor-car. Bells were used as signals—vide the poem "Tinkle, twinkle, motor-car"—and a speed of twelve miles an hour is spoken of as typical. Punch was busy throughout the year with forecasts and prophecies—a motor Derby; a "motor-crawler" for deer stalkers, not altogether unlike the "scooter" of recent years; a motor-coach for the Lord Mayor's procession; and a "moto-growler" almost indistinguishable from the electric brougham. Reference is made to the trial run of motors from London to Brighton, and the frequent breakdowns associated with motoring in its early stages are illustrated in the conjugation of the new verb to "mote":—
PRESENT TENSE
I mote.
Thou stokest.
He looks out for the police.
We run into a lamp-post.
Ye knock a man over.
They pay damages.