THE MANIA FOR SPEED

Northern Advocate, 25 November 1925, Page 10

THE MANIA FOR SPEED

THEN AND NOW,

A CENTURY'S EVOLUTION.

i It has been stated that we of today j worship speed with a single minded I fervour —speed without a purpose, and for its own sake. When everything is considered in that contention. Take, for instance, the motor-car, the aeroplane, fast-moving boats, horse racing, cycling, swimming, skating, running, sculling, and the trains. In. each instance there is an undoubted bid for speed, and every year finds old records being "broken .and new records l)eing established, until some of the speeds attained are apt to make one dizzy. I Comparisons with the rate of travel jin the days of our grandfathers and that of the present 'day makes interest- ' ing reading, and what was then considered "absurd and ridiculous" is j now considered "too slow for words." In 1812 the journey from Providence !to Boston, U.S.A., a distance of 40 miles, was completed by coach in four : hours and fifty minutes. A letter I written at that time says that if any I one wanted to go faster they could ! send to Kentucky and charter a streak of lightning. To go back to 1804, it is found that the word "speed" was beginning to become known to the public. A description of a journey on February 14, 1804, is as follows: —"We proceeded on our journey with tho engine; we | carried ten tons of iron, five waggons, ■ j and 70 men riding on them for the : I whole of the journey. It is about nine j j miles, which we performed in four j hours and. five minutes. ■ The engine, ; while working, went nearly five miles an hour." In 1825 there appeared a. statement in the "Quarterly Review" which gives a good indication of the lack of foresight displayed by the people of that day. The writer says: "What can be more palpably absurd and ridiculous than the pi'ospect held out of locomotives travelling twice as fast as stage coaches? We should as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congrieve's ricochet rockets as trust ourselves to the mercy of such a maI chine going at such a rate. We trust, i that Parliament will, v in all railways j it may sanction, limit the speed to eight or nine miles an hour, which is I as great as can be ventured on with i safety."

The effect of trains travelling at 20 miles an hour created something like a sensatioij in Indiana, U.S.A., in 1830, and the following letter which appeared in*tlie Vincenncs "Sun" of that year gives an excellent idea of the stir it created: —"I.see what will be the effect of it; that it will set the whole world a-gadding. Twenty miles an hour, sir! Why, von will not be able to keep an apprentice boy at his work! Every Saturday evening he must liqLve a trip to Ohio, to spend a Sunday with his sweetheart. Grave, plodding citizens, will be flying about like comets. All local attachments will be at an end. It will encourage flightiness of intellect. Veracious people will turn into the most immeasurable liars. All conceptions will be exaggerated by the . magnificent notions of distance. Only 100 miles off! —Tut, nonsence, I'll step across, maI dam, and bring your Van! —And then, j sir, there will be barrels of pork, carj goes of flour, chaldrons Of coal, and j even, lead and whisky, and such-like ! sober things that have always been j tised to slow travelling —whisking ' away like a skyrocket. It will upset all the gravity of the nation. Upon j the whole, sir, it is a pestilentious, I topsy-turvey, harum-scarum whirligig Give me the old, solemn, straightfor-

I ward, regular Dutch canal —three miles lan hour for expresses .and tworodjog- • trot journey—with a yoke of oxen for J heavy loads. I go for beasts of bin j den. It is more formative and Scripj tural, and suits a moral and religious ] people better . None of your hop, , skip and jump whimsies for me." j That was then. And now we come to I the present day. j In 1904 the American mail was j brought from Mill Bay Crossing to I Paddington, a distance of 240 miles, jin 227 minutes. The average speed j was 71 miles an hour. In almost ! every part of the world at the present j time the trains can attain, at least | a speed of 40 miles an hour with the I utmost safety, and if a sensation was j created in 1830 because a train was to j travel at the rate of 20 miles an hour, ] there is a possibilitv that 40 miles an ] hour would have caused a riot, i In 1818, under the auspices of the J Automobile Association of America, I I>e Palma covered 20 miles at a speed J of IJSO miles an hour. j The speed attained in aeroplanes is | almost incredible, but there is no denv- , ing official records. At the Pulitzer | speed classic at St. Louis, A. J. Wil!liams flew home the winner, having averaged 243.'! miles per hour. Later, j iu a test, Williams averaged 2(><> miles J for four flights over the proscribed j three-kilometre course. A recent statement in the "Baltimore American" says: —"We shall live to see men fly round the world by daylight. A 'plane travelling around the earth in the latitude of New York (15,820 miles) need only go at the rate of 470 to 475 miles per hour to do the trick in 40 hours. We have already attained 2(>(! miles an hour, anil we may go the rest of the way in the next five years."