Through East Anglia in a Motor Car

by James Edmund Vincent

CHAPTER VI

LONDON, FELIXSTOWE—DUNWICH, FELIXSTOWE

In an 18 White steam car—Best exit from London eastwards—General ignorance of the White steam cars—Some interested prejudice against them—An account of them—Independent testimony to them—Woodford and Chingford—Popularity of Epping Forest—Pepys on the roads—Little improvement—A haunting cyclist—Impression of the Forest—"Seeing's believing"—True woodland unkempt—Thorn trees as evidence of antiquity—Motor-cyclist's rivalry—Epping—Ongar—Chelmsford—Rich country—Colchester—The "Red Lion"—Memories of the Civil War—Deaths of Lucas and Lisle—Through Ipswich—Trimley's two churches—Felixstowe—A hotel half awake—Felix the Burgundian—Rainy morning—Glance at Felixstowe—Mr. Felix Cobbold, M.P.—His perfect home—Rock-gardens and pergolas—The walled garden—A Jersey herd—An afternoon drive—Nature's garden of Suffolk—The motorist's independence—Machine feels no pain—A circuit to Woodbridge—Wickham Market and Saxmundham—Hey for Dunwich!—Course laid over farm tracks—Desolate Dunwich—Irresistible coast erosion—Skeletons "all awash"—The lost forest—Dunwich in the past—Steady loss of land—Back to Felixstowe through byways and by road.

At precisely ten minutes past three in the afternoon of the 17th of March an 18-h.p. White steam car glided out of Kingly Street, Regent Street. At ten minutes to four, without any undue haste in driving, it was out in the open country at Ponder's End, the route taken being by way of York Road (hard by King's Cross Station) and Seven Sisters Road. This route, which involves but three turns, if the right ones be chosen, is at once the quickest way out of London to the eastward; far less unpleasant to eye, nostrils, and ears than the drive through Whitechapel; far less difficult in the matter of traffic; and it has the further advantage of leading the traveller almost at once into scenes of sylvan beauty more often raved about to the sceptical than seen by the eyes of the wise. For these reasons it is given with pharmaceutical detail in the "Practical Observations." The occupants of the car were Mr. Frederick Coleman, London manager of the White Steam Car Company of the United States; Mrs. Coleman, a lady possessing the rare gift of a remarkably exact topographical memory; their child, my wife and myself, and a mechanic who sat contentedly, after the manner of his kind, at my feet. The car was fitted with cape hood for use if necessary, and, in the way of luggage, it carried two fair-sized suit-cases upon a platform astern, containing all the impedimenta which could reasonably be required by folks who intended to travel by day and to rest comfortably at hotels in the evening. It may be added that we had no absolutely fixed plan, for we meant to drift whither we pleased, allowing fancy or inclination to dictate to us the time for halting and the resting-place for the night.

The expedition had been anticipated with considerably more than ordinary interest, because, although it had been my lot to be much in motors since motors invaded England, it had not been my fortune ever before to take a long drive in a White steam car. A very large number of motorists must be—as in fact I know that they are—without personal experience of a White steam car, although it may well be that they are familiar with reports to its prejudice, or silent shrugging of the shoulders and raising of the eyebrows when it is mentioned, which are perfectly natural and excusable. I can readily imagine that if I had a pecuniary interest in any of the leading types of petrol-driven cars, between which there is next to no room for choice, I might show no headlong desire to testify in favour of a car moving more smoothly than any petrol-car, free from the nuisance of a starting-handle (it is a danger too sometimes, as the broken arm of a friend's careless chauffeur has shown recently), absolved from the necessity of change-speed gear, capable of an astonishing turn of speed, singularly strong in hill-climbing and—considerably less expensive than any petrol-driven car of equal power—by power I do not mean horse-power. The best plan, perhaps, of avoiding the temptation to give such testimony would be to avoid the preliminary experience, and not to try a White steam car at all. Having no financial interest in any kind of car, being well aware that even among motorists crass ignorance on the subject of this type of car prevails, having heard from private friends, complete strangers to the motor-car industry, that White cars have given them complete satisfaction, and that, in their opinion, the public needs enlightenment on the subject, I deem it right to give some account of the 1906 model of the White steam cars.

Now this is an age of advertisement and, therefore, of necessity, an age given to suspect latent advertisement. It is therefore prudent to state that no consideration of any kind has passed or will pass from the White Steam Car Company or anybody connected with it to me, or to the publishers, that nobody connected with the company has even a suspicion that I am going to attempt to describe the car, that anybody connected with the company could do it more accurately, and that there is no other motive in writing than a desire to make known a good thing to those who may be fortunate enough to be able to obtain it. Every motorist, and many a man and woman not fairly to be described as such, is familiar with the general principles underlying every petrol-driven car; and the distinctions between types of petrol cars are due entirely to little differences of detail in the application of those principles. That is why no description of a petrol-driven car is necessary in these pages or could be tolerated in them. Very few motorists really know anything about White steam cars, and that is why they are described in short and popular language.

Perhaps the best justification for it is to be found in a personal explanation. A week or so after this expedition ended I met in Piccadilly a friend, high in the service of the Crown and of large private means, whose name it would be a breach of faith to publish; but, as a guarantee of good faith, I here state that, in the margin of the manuscript, I have written the name for the private information of the publishers. It is one which would carry a great deal of weight if it were printed. I had left my friend's house in May, 1905, after trying with him a French and English car, both of well-known makes, of which he was very proud. After our first greeting in March, 1906, I remarked that I had been trying a White steam car exhaustively, and that I was simply astonished by its capabilities. It turned out that, in the interval, he had acquired one, and he was entirely at one with me. "I am delighted with it; so is my man; the public ought to know about it." Those were the ipsissima verba of an absolutely independent man, whose mechanical and engineering knowledge is far above the average, whom, as an exacting judge of sheer comfort, his friends believe to have no superior in this world. After that, let him who pleases suspect latent advertisement. In fact, Honi soit qui mal y pense, and let the truth be told.

A White steam car is, in general outline and appearance, very like a petrol-driven car, and the cautious Mr. Worley Beaumont, who is honorary consulting engineer to the Automobile Club and consulting engineer to the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, has written thus: "The makers of these cars are to be congratulated upon the possession and development of a type of steam generator which, in combination with a cleverly designed engine and well devised and constructed auxiliary gear and parts, has made it possible to produce a car capable of continuing to compare favourably with those propelled by the petrol engine." The essential points are the steam generator, which it is simpler to call the boiler, and the burner, or fire. The generator is an ingenious arrangement of coiled tubes, fed with water from the top, always containing, when the fire has been kindled, some water as well as a sufficient supply of superheated steam. The burner is, to quote Mr. Beaumont, "in form a shallow drum, the upper face of which is annularly ridged. The ridges are sawn or slit through at close intervals, and provide openings through which the combustible gas and air mixture combines with additional air flowing upwards through the numerous openings in the tubes." In other words the fuel, petrol, or benzolene ingeniously vaporized, is forced into the annular ridges, there mixes with air, and the mixture burns fiercely. The steam temperature is most cleverly controlled by the "thermostat," which may be described sufficiently for popular purposes by stating that it regulates the force of the fire automatically by the temperature of the steam, the automatic regulation being founded on the different expansions of brass and steel under varying degrees of heat. There are great opportunities, too, for humouring the engine, through the burner and generator of course, by the adroit use of the throttle.

These are the essentials. The drawbacks, if such they be, to this kind of steam car are that it needs to have its burner lighted for a period varying from three to five minutes in the morning before starting, and that it requires a fresh supply of water for every 150 miles or so. The second requirement is really of no moment in this country; the first, it has been argued with all appearance of seriousness, renders this steam car inferior to a petrol car in "efficiency." Now this, unless "efficiency" has merely technical signification, is absurd. Substantially, even if the hour of setting forth has not been fixed beforehand, one can always afford to wait three minutes before starting on a drive; if it comes to that so much time is usually occupied in wrapping oneself up and in bestowing passengers; and, in any ordinary acceptation of the word, the starting-handle, which must be applied after every substantial halt, is the most inefficient device conceivable. Other drawbacks, candidly, I found none, except that, on our first day, some new asbestos packing made itself perceptible to the nostrils; and there was no question that the absence of change-speed gear, and the absolute smoothness with which more power could be applied when necessary on hills, were a genuine pleasure.