CHILDREN AND CARS.

Southland Times, Issue 21193, 20 September 1930, Page 17

CHILDREN AND CARS.

LONG RUNS A MISTAKE. SOME ADVICE ON THIS POINT. It is unsafe to generalize, for children’s characters vary as much as grown-up people’s and there are plenty of children who can appreciate that motoring is still something of a novelty and a privilege, to whom a motor trip is still a glorious treat. But there are also a great many children, especially quite small children, who do not really enjoy the state of enforced inertia which motoring involves, for whom habitual car travel merely stands in the way of other things which they would much prefer to be doing. Small children are endowed with enormous, restless bodily energy which expresses itself in crawling, scrambling, running ,and racing, and all the boisterousness that needs must be restrained within reasonable limits, provided always that at certain times it has plenty of free outlet. In a car a child may have to keep still for hours, and however good this may be as discipline and training, grown-ups must not forget that long motor rides may be just a form of pennance to an active child, and take care not to make too great demands on the youngsters’ patience and self-control by keeping them stuffed up in a car too long. Then there is the child’s mind, as restless and energetic as his body, which may also suffer from the enforced inactivity of motoring. A child in a car is rushed through a series of scenes and sights which he has not time to notice properly or take in, and he gets a confused blur of impressions, falls asleep, or is merely dazed and stupefied. This is scarcely a state of mind to be encouraged , and to an active-minded child, eager to notice things, to explore and inquire, it is productive of as much boredom as inactivity of the body. Even a mechanically minded child, to whom motors really mean something gets very little out of being driven indefinitely. . The Remedy Simple.

The remedy is simple. It is never to drive children too far, and not to drive all the time. An hour and a half is quite enough for a child to be cooped up in a car at a srretch; two hours, except when needs must, should be the outside limit. There should be a long halt, at least as long as the outward and homeward journeys, not including meal times, in which children should ramble or play, or fish, or do whatever they most . enjoy, to their hearts’ desire. AU sensible families make a practice of this in their week-end outings, and regard the car as a means of indulging all the outdoor tastes which cannot be gratified at home. In this way the car becomes the child’s especially the town child’s, friend and liberator,' instead of a prison. He can get to know nearly as much of the outdoor world as his country cousin, and can become a naturalist, a sportsman, or even an artist, acquiring pleasures and interests which will befriend him through life. Even a motor-mad youngster, and there are many of them, will lose nothing by learning to care for other things, and to regard a car as a means to happiness and liberty, rather than an end in itself. He will be saved, at any rate, from the bugbear of monotony which in the early years of life cramps growing intelligence. When touring for pleasure ,with children on board, the same rule applies, and there will be not onlv play and exercise to consider, but beautiful spots and quaint houses to visit and other antiquities of the country side. Children can be interested in almost anything that is given them in moderation; it is the overdose that kills. And when a long journey has perforce to be undertaken by car it must not be forgotten to let the children have extra time in the days following to stretch their limbs and work off accumulated energy and restlessness, which will only too probably seek an unlawful outlet if not allowed a lawful one. SEMI-DIESEL ENGINE. SWEDISH INCIDENT. A START ON PETROL. During the past few years a great deal of interest has been taken in the development of high-speed Diesel engines, capab e of running on cheap and non-inflammable oil fuel says The Motor. Unlike a petro engine, in which a carburetter supplies fuel mixed with air for compression and subsequent ignition by a spark, the true Diesel inhales air alone, the fuel being injected by a pump at the end of the compression stroke. In order that the air may become hot enough to ignite the fuel, the compression pressure employed is, naturally, much’ greater than in a petrol engine. Con sequently, stronger working parts must be used, which increase the weight of the engine and limit its speed. It is, therefore, very interesting to notice that a new type of engine has been developed by a prominent Swedish engineer, Mr K. J. E. Hesselman. His aim has been to produce a power unit which shall combine the flexibility and low weight of all ordinary petrol engines with an ability to run on fuel oil, which at present is obtainable for about 5d per gallon. Mr Hesselman’s experimental work was recognized by the Royal Swedish Academy of Technical Science, which last year awarded him a gold medal.- Engines built .to his design have proved very successful in the course of tests made at Stockholm, and are now being actively developed in England and in Austria for road transport purposes.

In the Hesselman engine air alone is induced and is' compressed to a pressure much the same as that commonly employed for petrol engines. Fuel is injected towards the end of the compression stroke and the mixture is then ignited by a spark provided by an ignition system of the orthodox type. When used in a motor vehicle the ordinary accelerator pedal control is employed, and there is really nothing to acquaint the driver of the fact that the power unit is not orthodox. The exhaust is clear and odourless, and the engine runs with great flexibility. The fuel is supplied to each cylinder byindependent pumps driven from the camshaft used to operate the valves. The quantity supplied is governed by an adjustment interrupting the suction stroke of the pump, and this in turn is controlled by the accelerator pedal. A screened inlet valve is employed to admit the air tangentially, so that a whirling motion is produced which is maintained throughout the compression stroke.

The fuel is sprayed in through a nozzle in two streams, one of which is carried by the whirling air directly past the sparking plug, while the other becomes mixed with the air and is ignited indirectly. It is said that this method ensures immediate ignition when the engine is running on light loads with a surplus of air in the cylinders. The air is admitted to the inlet pipe through a filter and a regulating valve, which is operated from the accelerator pedal in conjunction with the fuel control. The principle is to throttle the air at low loads, so as to ensure complete combustion and thus to prevent smoking. An ingenious feature of this engine is that rthe combustion chamber is sunk in the piston crown. The peripheral extension of the piston shields the cylinder walls from contact with the fuel and the hottest flame at top dead centre, so safeguarding the lubricating oil. This extended part of the piston is cut away in two places to allow of access to the sparking plug and the fuel nozzle. It is stated that there is no difficulty in starting the engine with an ordinary electric motor, but to ensure a quick start in cold weather a small electric pump is employed to force a few drops of petrol into the inlet pipe.

The school for training boys as chefs for high-class hotel work, which was started by the London County Council in 1910, has turned out about 3000 fuUy-trained men since that date.

By using a steel ball as a driving chamber, a New York scientist has gone to a depth of 800 ft. below the surface of the sea. He carried on a telephone conversation with people on the tug.