ONE THOUSAND MOTOR-CARS IN BOMBAY.

Northland Age, Volume VI, Issue 40, 30 May 1910, Page 2

ONE THOUSAND MOTOR-CARS IN BOMBAY.

,r + It is of great interest to study the meeting of East and West in the glad adoption by India of all the conveniences of life incidental to the civilisation of the West. This process is going on at a tremendous speed. Whirr ! Down the road comes a huge motor-car, driven by a wealthy Hindu merchant, with a party of friends s'tting behind. (There are nearly one thousand motor-cars in Bombay, registered and numbered by the Commissioner of Police.) He has a native "chauffeur" to look after the car, but he drives it with perfect confidence himself. In the matter of '•‘scorching" the Indians are probably worse offenders than the Europeans. It may he mentioned that there is no legal speed-limit in Bombay ; but the police have discretionary powers to deal with cars travelling at a speed which they may consider excess!'. e for any particular thoroughfare. Behind him comes a Government telegraph-messenger—an Indian, of course—in a khaki outfit, and bearing perhaps one of our much-valued fourpenny (now sixpence) telegrams, which may have travelled over two thousand miles, from the confines of Bui mail. ITe is mounted on a Government bicycle, painted the Government red, and is pedalling away vigorously with his bare feet. You do not need to be told that there are hundreds of cycles in Bombay, and, alas ! the Municipality taxes them at about ten shillings a year. There are also dozens of cy-cle-dealers, and you can not only buy bicycles, but get them mended as well. There is one cycle-repairing shop run entirely by Parsis, the manager of v. hich assured me that they had every mechanical appliance for building an entire cycle.—Frank Anderson, in the "Sunday at Home."