THE MOTOR

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 125, 28 May 1915, Page 4

THE MOTOR

LOCAL ROAD INTERESTS. WELLINGTON CLUB'S ACTIVITY. The Wellington Automobile Club has been active in several directions for the general welfare of motorists, and some matters of the kind were dealt with at the executive meeting last Friday. Dr. Prendergast Knight and Messrs Young and Banks were elected delegates to the Now Zealand Automobile Association. A letter was received from the Wairarapa Club in reference to the proposed Orongorongo-Coast road, and asking for the Wellington Clab's co-opera-tion in the matter of sharing the cost of the survey. It was decided that three of the Wairarapa Club's members, with their cars, should meet three of the local club's members next week-end, when a thorough survey, extending over Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, will be made. The services of Mr. Toogood, C.1.E., have been engaged for this purpose. The thanks of the club are dne to Mr. G- H. Izard for his work in connection with the 'removal of the Upper Hutt "motor hurdles," for a long time a thorn in the side of local motorists. The Tanmarunui Chamber of Commerce wrote regarding the formation of the proposed national highway from Wellington to Auckland, and, after some discussion, it, was decided to render assistance in every way possible. A reply to a letter, which had been forwarded to the Town Clerk some time ago, complaining of the bad state of the road opposite the Lainbton Station, was received, stating that the work would be pirt in hand in due course. However, since the reply was received, the road in the vicinity of the station had been re-metalled and put in good order. It is hoped that there will be a ready response to the association's appeal to its members for the loan of their cars for the , Carnival procession, either decorated or for use by the Carnival officials. AUSTRALIAN ROAD RACING. It is anticipated that some very fast racing will be seen in -the Victorian Motor-Cycle Club's 100 miles road race at Mortlake on Monday, 7th June. The event is to be a' handicap around a, particularly fast 33-miles triangular course, which should" 1 lend itself to a speed of 70 miles an hour* in places. Despite three sharp corners, K. Walker's 100 miles Australian road record of lhr 48min should be closely approached, if not beaten. Many of the back men. will be riding motor-cycles capable of averaging a mile- a minute throughout the race. WRONG WAY! The owner of '■ a car, which he had recently had to pieces, took it to a garage to have an extraordinary condition of affairs examined into. He found that the car had three reverse speeds and only one forward speed. On dismounting the back axle it was discovered that the owner, after dismantling it, had i>eplaced it upside down. Strange things can happen when a novice takes down a motor-car for an overhaul. MOTOR BATHROOM. f War has shown a number of uses, for the motor vehicle little dreamt of in times of peace. The latest development in connection with mechanical transport is a t motor bathroom, built by Messrs. Brown, Hughes, and Strachan for the St. John Ambulance Association. Large canvasses to form two tent bathrooms are rolled up under shelves on each side of the body, and tent-poles and other accessories are 1 carried on the roof. The size of these bathrooms is about Bft by 10ft, and there are six baths in each. In the car are two circulating boilers which supply hot water, at about two gallons pel* minute each, to taps, from which the water is taken to the baths by means of a hose-pipe. The boilers are heated by paraffin vapour supplied under pressure, and the paraffin is stored in a fifty-gallon tank, which can be refilled by means of a hand pump and hose. Inside the car are store cupboards and shelves, with a lai'go fumigating cupboard capable of holding thirty suits of clothes. The latter are cleaned and disinfected by vapour rising from a tank containing water and chemicals. The motor bathrooms can be carried on any 20-30 h.p. chassis, and not a very long wheel-base is required. Both the floor and the roof of the caravan body are covered with sheet-iron, while that portion near the boiiers is lined with fireresisting material. The process of disinfecting the clothes takes about 1£ hours, and can be carried on irrespective of or simultaneous with the use of the baths. How useful and comforting to our troops at the front this travelling bathroom will be can easily be realised. HEROES AT THE WHEEL. A large number of motorists are serving at the front by driving ambulances. They are men who for various l'easons have not been accepted for the fighting line, but they are doing very work nevertheless. Tn the current issue of the Autocar Mr. R. Cartwright gives some of his experiences at the front, and they are most interesting. " I was present, ' he says, " at the French defeat at Soissons — a defeat which was really a noble victory. The way those Frenchmen stood up against the German onslaughts, with every cartridge of value, a flooded river behind them, making! reinforcements and munitions difficult to carry across the river, was a revelation. What a patriot the average French con<script must be! There \vere hundreds of them on that hill with never a chance for a safe retreat ; their only chance was to surrender. They did " not surrender, but a ( few of them dribbled into the bridge' head, wounded but still cheerful. Thtiy were the remnants of that stout, rearguard, they had stood up assaulted on all hands, beating buck bayonet charges with the reckless bravery of a lion at bay. Their comrades fell with the 'Marseillaise' on their lips, their . empty stomachs they made as slim as their belts would allow, and there the brave fellows fought and dropped in sight of their comrades across the river, who were, alas ! unable to assist them. T and a', few others watched the fearful carnage with glasses from the other side near 'the staff headquarters until the wounded were being brought down, when we went across the crazy pontoons to fetch them back. Timo after time these pontoons gave out, only to be repaired with the aid of a couple of motor-launches under heavy fire. Ihe river still rose and made the situation more desperate as each day went by, and the attack degenerated first into a defence and then into a desperate retreat before overwhelming odds. " The last journeys wo made against orders, but a little Yank, who was, I beliove, Sloan, the well-known jockey, and a good-humoured Irishman, who, by Lhe way, was a cripple unable to cover a mile in an hour without his car, persuaded urs to run the gauntlet, which we did. I drew third turn, and made the journey there and back twice, with ten up, the only trouble being a holp through tho canvas received while going out empty. My friend the Irishman had the t6p of' his car clean cut off by a shell, but he went on. and returned with a most extraordinary chassis. Tho cover of the gear-box hod Jieen -uerforated^bv .a piece of eheU, *

one of the gear-wheels had been stripped, and the whole of the oil had dropped through the hole, leaving the wheels practically dry. The body was riddled with bullet holes, and many spoke? in both tho lear wheels were torn out. : Yet he went on all right after plugging the holes with canvas. His escape was a miracle, for he swerved quite a foot on the pontoon when tho shell burat, and tho pontoon la.y right over. 1 thought he had been shot, and quite expected him to drop in. He came through, and, smart chap that he was, went out with a couple of engineers to stop tho holes in, the pontoon through which the water was sinking the whole bridge. The number of wounded that we carried that night was staggering. Hospital after hospital reported itself unable to take any more, and this when ambulance trains were carrying trainloads southwards at the rate of one every hour or so. Whatever will become of these broken men after the war? There must be hundreds of thousands of men whose injuries will affect their constitutions throughout the rest of their lives. Reading in one's newspaper of so many wounded fails to convey the effect of the carnage. " Since the Soissons affair I have been more occupied in the Champagne district, where every day at every place there is stern attack and defence. The best of the German troops are occupied in this district, and stubbornly defend every inch of the territory they have seized, just as stubbornly as the French strive to regain possession of the land of their forefathers. Tho more easterly I one gets the more hilly are the roads,

and consequently worse for the poor chauffeur Down the hills the use of skid-pans on horsed vehicles has mado the roads almost impassable. Roads of this character have to be traversed with the wounded, who must be endowed with great staying powers to stand journeys of twenty miles or more on them without succumbing."