The Motorist Conscience.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 138, 7 December 1907, Page 14

The Motorist Conscience.

A conversation overheard the other morning at the Hotel de France at Chartres :—: — Lady Motorist to her Husband : "There's nothing to make one sleep like a brute through a night of twelve hfurs like a run of 300 kilos, afc express pace." He; "I could have slept twice as long had you not come to knock me up." She : "I had good reason to bother you. , Read this." He (aftor reading a paragraph in the accidents column) : "Weil, it's tiresome if any witness saw the number of our motor. Let us hope that nobody was about. I did not see any one. Did you?" She : "No; but the killed and casualties are serious. I shall never have the courage to drive again through the place." He : "A la guerre coijune a la guerre. After all, why 'do those country folks and bagmen wobble about in driving their wagons and their traps?" She: "They wobble to avoid the ruts. What if we senb a 500 francs note anonymously to tho mayor for the widow? Money is often a great consoler." He : "On no account just yet. The envelope might in some way set the people on the right scent. Those Normandy judges inflict swinging damages. It would be no- laughing matter to find ourselves as heavily mulcted as friend Do Noailles :" Tho subject dropped ; the pair swallowed their "cafe au lait," and in a few minutes were in their forty-horse-power on' route for' Paris, the chauffeur taking a back seat. At tho samo place a fresh set of motorists gaily talked oE tho difficulty they had 'to prevent their machine running into the limousine (private motor 'bus) of President FalKeres. "Why the deuce did /yon not?" cried an old retired officer who dines daily at his hoteL "There would havo been then at Versailles a fine scramble for tho Presidency, and a good law might havo been passed next session to prevent fast motors running outsido tho rinks. ' Things never movo in Franco save under the spur of some terribly strong emotion. The killing or leg-breaking of a, President and his staff would have strengthened those remonstrances of some of tho county councils against the intrusion on the highways of the greyhound motor. Better luck next time— though by all accounts Failleres is a real good fellow. When he wants to go at high speed ho limits his drive to the reserved part of the forest." "And well he may," cried auother guest. "lie has," so to speak, a rink there o£ four or five hundred acres." — Paris correspondence London Truth,