Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1899 — THE COMING VEHICLE. [ARTICLE]

THE COMING VEHICLE.

Very Uncomplimentary Opinion of Au ‘ tomobiles by an American Lady. The motor car, or automobile, as It Is called in France, where it is most popular, has not yet been brought Into general use in America either for pleasure or for convenience. First Impressions of the early steamboatsand locomotives make odd enough reading to-day, and possibly a few years hence first impressions of the “coming vehicle” will sound no less queer. But certainly it did not please a recent American visitor to Nice, where there Is a particularly flourishing and fashionable automobile club, which even held, not long ago, an automobile parade, in which flower-bedecked motor cars and motor cycles competed for elegant prize banners. “I met the horrid things first,” she writes, “throbbing and pounding along the Cornlche road, whizzing through the loveliest scenes in the world at an absurd speed, and raising small private cyclones of dust for the delectation of their passengers, who did not look happy. “My carriage raised no dust at all, and there was none to trouble the cyclist or pedestrian. The first of the monsters gave warning of its approach at some distance away, before it rang or tooted, by a curious whirring, panting, drumming noise which puzzled me greatly; then came a blast of the horn, and presto! round a curve of the road, in a cloud of dust, spun an automobile with four passengers. “Talk of the •bicycle face’ of the scorcher, whose wrinkled brow and staring eyes make him a laughingstock—the motor face, When you see it, is much more fixed and tragical! You do not always see much of it. Several of the men wore huge dark goggles to protect their eyes, and some of the la* .dies had on ghastly black half-masks, which were even worse. They may have been enjoying themselves, but none of them looked as if they were. “As for th dr automobiles—well, 1 can say truthfully that the things go, and go fast, and go easily, if ponderously, and go up or down mountainously high hills without difficulty, as required; but they struck me ns smelly, dusty, rackety, and wholly uninviting. I would no more care to own one than J would to keep a small private fire engine for pleasure driving.” This is vigorous language. But perhaps Mr. Edison or his son, or some other brilliant Yankee inventor, will modify the motor car into something more* attractive before we organize our motor clubs and tours on this side of the water. And it remains the fact, meanwhile, that in France not only men, but women, are enthusiastic amateurs of the new amusement. No one is allowed to propel an automobile unaccompanied by a properly licensed engineer and stoker, or chauffeur; but on presenting proof of competence the amateur may acquire such a license himself—or herself, for it is an amusing fact that duchesses, countesses and tine ladies of Faris are emulous to earn, and proud to display, their licenses as accredited ami responsible chauffeurs, or stokeresses!