FUN FOR THE MILLION

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19459, 5 November 1928, Page 6

FUN FOR THE MILLION

The Motorist as Others See Him CASE FOR THE DEFENCE Specially written for "The Press,"Uy R. P. Furness, President Marlborough Automobile Association. Excepting bricklayers and pedestrians,, motorists probably form the subject of more jokes and gibes than any other stratum of society—or perhaps I should say than any other branch of industry, for motoring, like bricklaying and pedestrianism, is an industry, where the race is not always to the swift, but is very often so; barring accidents, of course. Should a simple car-owner confuse the petrol-tank with the radiator and mix water with his spirit, someone is bound to wake a cartoon out of it; does he crawl from under a mass of wreckage that once was a car, following an argument with a telegraph-pole, some passer-by is sure to ask him if he has had an accident; let him run out of petrol nineteen miles front anywhere, and be is certain to be confronted with a tinplate sign on a neighbouring tree, "Spiffo Spirit Will Get You There." "OVER THE EDGE." It's all very well to argue that the luckless motorist is contributing bis quota to the Gaiety of Nations, and that it's an ill wind that won't blow up his tyres when properly directed (provided the pump's under the seat where ft ought to be, and not in his far-away shed, out of order); and that therefore he should Grin and Bear It, or fulfil some other bright copybook maxim. What I want to drive home is that this sort of thing can be carried too far. One of these fine days the worm will turn. For example: A friend of mine was making a journey in a service.car recently. It was not a very late model 'bus, but had just been done up and passed by the censor. Well, near the top of a range of hills, half a, mile from the nearest homestead, a tyre pictured. There was no spare rim on the car—that particular model was not fitted to carry One —so the driver had perforce to take the tyre off and insert a fresh tube, When be went to get the jack to lift.the wheel up be found that there was no lack; it had not been put in after th? overhaul. So he hurried the half mile to the nearest homestead I have mentioned, arid returned with the settler's jack, Off came the wheel and in went the new tube. The next job, of course, as any fellow-sufferer wfll tell you, was to blow it up, This the driver tried and tried to do, push after steady push, but nothing happened, "Must be perished," he whispered; w off came the wheel and out came the tube, to be replaced by another One. Still no result after much pumping. And y«t a third tube was tried, but with no better luck. )

Eventually it dawned on the poor chap that his pump was a casualty, so off he set again to the farmhouse, The best pump was away in the car with the boss, hut would the second-best one do? Any old thing would do, provided it would pump J And it did, albeit slewly and painfully, and it le«fth--about an hour and half from the time the CAT stoppecU-aU was in readiness again,

• Was there a grateful smile and a word of encouragement for that sweating, toiling driver? There wag no npile, no kind word; tempers were too raw for that. "If this were my car I'.d push it over the bankl" exploded one passenger.

"Yes," remarked another, who had evidently been orer the road before; "just round the next corner there's a straight drop of a couple of hundred feet to the creek!" Could you have blamed that driver if he had taken the hint and sent the whole bag'O'-tricks, including his two tormentors, rushing to a headlong doom? Yet he didn't; the only reason being, so far as I can gather, that there were ladies present CHEAPNESS AlfD HASTINESS, Even persons in High Places are constrained to joke and jeer at us motoring folk. Authors talk about us in their books. The other day, in the correspondence columns of a London paper, I came across a letter from a man who wanted tho context of the following quotation, which he ttwugnt was from Chesterton :-*

"It is cheaper to sit in a meadow and see a motor go by than, to sit in a motor and see a meadow go by."

He didn't say why be wanted toe contest; perhaps it was in order that he wight find out where Chesterton lived so that he could self him a Sports Model and then get an interview with him in which he would eat his words.

Chesterton may be right within limits! hut on general principles I don't agree with him. Most meadows look nice and peaceful, and may be nice and peaceful, provided you don't choose to sit in one where there happens to he * sign, "Beware of the Bull!" On the other hand, many cars do not look nice nor do they* sound peaceful; so while it may be cheaper, from a mere monetary point of view, to lit in the lush meadow, "with daisies pied" and all that, and gaze at (and listen unwillingly to) a senile contraption of bolts and iron grinding by, it is also nastier. And what about the cost of transport to the meadow compared with the "buckshee" ride which Chesterton might be having in gome friend's car?. Then, too, the man in the motor is able to see not only the one beautiful meadow but all those in th» neighbourhood, whereas the meadowtark may have his eyes and oars assailed by the sight and sound of many pre-streamliners coughing and churning their rural way ahmg. So here again cheapness is not everything. A CHALLENGE. If I had the money and he would substitute pounds for pence I would go to Aberdeen—for I presume he lives ttar£*uid accept the challenge of one Sir Hugh Allen, who has thrown down the gage in the following reckless manner:— "I would bet a penny to a pound that the motorist sees less in his 100 miles than the walker sees in one." As I say, he would have to make it worth my while, and odds 0|240 to 9P would have* to be in gold on both