Civilized mankind, or mankind presumed to be civilized, may be divided for our present purpose into four classes. These are motorists pure and simple, whom no other pursuit or occupation interests; motorists who own cars and use them in moderation for pleasure or for profit; non-motorists, who own no cars and seldom have the opportunity of going in a car; and antimotorists, who absolutely refuse to enter a car, and regard the very existence of cars as an intolerable outrage. To the first class it is almost idle to attempt to address any observations in print. They live and move-much too fast very often-in an automobile world; they talk of clutches, carburetters, and ignition, of driving deeds and the purblind folly of the public, from morn till eve; they rarely, in my experience of them, cast so much as a glance at a daily paper; but they immerse themselves week after week in the automobile press, and form their idea of the surrounding world of humanity from that press. That idea is curious, narrow, and inaccurate. The English community, as represented in the automobile press, consists in the main of men and women who are at once absorbed in admiring contempla tion of the "phenomenal" growth of the automobile movement, and bitterly prejudiced against all its features, separable and inseparable. Every magistrate is a probable perverter of justice, every policeman a past-master in the practice of perjury, every pedestrian is a sheer nuisance. That is the English community as it is. The community as it should be, and as, according to these prophets, it is sure to become, is one in which all things are subordinated to motoring, in which motor-cars will be free to course at all speeds over perfect and dustless roads,

uncambered or even, as Lord Montagu of Beaulieu once suggested, concave, regardless of the lives of pedestrians, who will tread these viæ sacræ-sacred to motor-cars, that is to say-at their own risk. These roads will all be straight as if drawn with a ruler on the map; they will have no hedges, no overhanging trees, no æsthetic amenities of any kind; they will be closed to the infirm and to the deaf.

It has been written already that it is almost idle to attempt to address any argument to motorists of this class. They live in a narrow environment of their own making; their idea of the state of public opinion is a dream from which there may be a rude awakening; and they would as soon think of reading the Cornhill Magazine as of attacking a philosophic treatise. Still, there is a faint chance that these words may reach their eyes, because some of them may possibly be quoted in automobile papers as an awful example of the besotted folly of the outer world; and in that faint hope the bald truth is stated. It is that the general community sees in the automobile industry a trade of some importance, the persons engaged in which suffer not a little from megalomania; that the world at large, especially that part of it which does not go much in motor-cars, is often more concerned with motor-cars as a nuisance and as a danger than as evidence of an industrial movement affording employment to many artisans; that the mass of the British public will neither put itself to great trouble for, nor allow itself to be outrageously put upon by, the owners of motor-cars. Now it is upon the opinions of this outside world, with which infatuated motorists have no communion, that the future liberties of all motorists depend. So, again in the faint hope of quotation

for purposes of scornful comment, I would remind that section of the infatuated motorists-rather a large one it is to be feared, to the better feelings of which it is useless to appeal, since they have none-that they will be well advised to take heed to their ways. Their future is in the hands of the public, and a large section of the public, including moderate motorists, is sorely angry with automobilism, as represented by the thoughtless minority of motorists, even now, although not nearly so indignant as it would have been if the summer had been less wet and more dusty. Even as matters stand, however, public opinion is in a state of angry excitement, and the Motor Union has done wisely to take steps to conciliate public opinion by attempting to persuade, and even to compel, the reckless section of motorists to conduct their journeys with some regard for decency.

From the point of view of a motorist who drives about a great deal for pleasure, combined sometimes with modest profit, I address the following words partly to my comrades, entirely to those who go less upon the roads in cars, to those who go not in cars at all, and to those who look upon the motor-car with jaundiced eyes. The frank intention is, in the first place, to persuade those of my comrades who need to be persuaded-not a large number, so far as their inclination goes, but some of them sinners from sheer lack of thought— to devote themselves steadily to the conciliation of public opinion by showing an excess rather than a deficiency of consideration for the other users of the roads. Next it is desired, and hoped, to convince the remainder of the constituency addressed that, while it is all but impossible to compel men to drive with consideration, there are men, rapidy growing in numbers, who, since they do in fact consider the comfort of those whom they pass, are

therefore deserving some consideration

in return. It is hoped, too, to convince the comrades who need conviction that the pleasures of considerate driving are incomparably greater than those of reckless rushing over roads, and to persuade the remainder of the constituency that the motor-car, rationally employed, is not only useful, but also productive of such new and intelligent pleasure that a humane man, far from desiring to curtail the enjoyment of it by others, should dream of it as a possibility for himself, or at all events should not grudge it to those who can afford it.

How best to adduce this argument, or these arugments, is the real question; and perhaps it may be most suitably answered in narrative statement, partly general and partly particular. It has been my good fortune to accompany one of the most skilful drivers of motor-cars to be found in this kingdom on a large number of expeditions in a car, the name of which shall be withheld lest the suspicion of advertisement should arise. Together we have driven over most of the Scottish roads, have made many tours in the Eastern Counties, have journeyed from London to Penzance, from Liverpool to Oxford, from London to Oxford and back often, from Oxford to Fishguard and back, from Manchester to London by night, from Glasgow to Doncaster by day, to say nothing of many shorter drives. Candor compels the admission that to the speed-limit, as defined by the law, we have never paid the least regard, except when there was reason to apprehend a police ambuscade. Yet not once, hitherto, has one of our journeys given rise to legal proceedings; and so, arguing perhaps somewhat from the particuar to the general (but "the particular" in this case is represented by many thousands of miles), I am disposed to suspect that "police traps" are not always so unreasonable as the automo

bile papers represent them to be. At all events, we have been able to complete our journeys in reasonable time, from a motorist's point of view-that is to say, to average from twenty-five to thirty miles an hour over some hundreds of miles on many occasions without once incurring the unpleasant attentions of the police. But, in truth, I fancy the police of many countries begin to know my friend and his careasily to be distinguished from London cars, usually suspect, and not always unjustly-as being rapid when circumstances justify speed, and careful to a fault when care is necessary. For example, we have often gone through Hatfield, seeing a policeman note the number and take the time there, have known that we should be observed and timed at other towns on the Great North Road, have reached those other towns before the law permitted us to reach them, and have heard no more of the matter.

This, to my mind, is as it should be; but then, apart from disregard for the letter of the law, so is the conduct of my friend as driver. Never have I known him to hug the off-side on taking a right-hand corner, which is the surest way to the coroner's court or to the dock upon an indictment for manslaughter. Over and over again, on approaching pedestrians or other vehicles, he has looked back to see if we were raising much dust, and if we were he has slackened the pace. Never has he failed-realizing the rule of prudence that you must always act as if other users of the way were likely to lose their heads or to err in calculating distances to allow as much space as possible to others on the road. Never has he neglected to reduce the speed to a mere crawl in passing a nervous horse, whose timidity he gauges by its demeanor even at a great distance; and to such horses he always addresses a word of encouragement

when they come within earshot, so that they may know the familiar creature man to be associated with what no doubt appears to them monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens. He knows, too, the parts of the country where horses are likely to be found motor-shy, as they are to an extraordinary degree in South Wales, but not as a general rule in Devon or Cornwall. Never does he omit to approach slowly the debouching point of a cross-road, and in towns his caution is remarkable. Stupidity is impotent to annoy him; ignorant prejudice-for example, that of the horsedriver who holds up his hand to stop the car merely to aggravate, well knowing his horse to have more sense than himself is powerless against his sympathetic philosophy. Keen motorist as he is, he appreciates the feelings of others, and acts upon his appreciation. One fault of others only, so far as I have seen, rouses him to indignant remonstrance, in which I join with heart and voice. It is the inveterate practice, which prosecution might perhaps stop, of taking corners on the wrong side, which many otherwise gentlemanlike drivers of cars pursue simply because a right-hand corner can most easily be taken in that way.

Of course, I have had experience of driving of another quality at the hands of paid drivers, and of others who believed themselves to be gentlemenwith some justice apart from their behavior as drivers. Paid drivers, no doubt, vary in character and tendency, but, to use the nursery phrase, I have been spoiled by the experience above described, and, dearly as I like motorcars, I would rather not go a-motoring at all than sit behind or beside a paid driver, British or foreign. But the latter are usually the worst offenders. They keep my heart in my mouth all the time by their conceited desire to show their skill in steering to a few hairs' breadths, by their eagerness to