232 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[February 1, 1913. 



resenting possible undue enthusiasm, we have 400,000 

 which probably will come close to the number of new 

 cars that will make their initial appearance on our 

 roadwaj's during the present year. It is quite safe to 

 predict that the million mark will he reached within 

 the next few months. 



What a tremendous boon the automobile has been 

 to the world ! What an addition to the efficiency and 

 fulness of our modern life! In the first place its con- 

 tribution to the pleasure and satisfaction of living is 

 incalculable. While some people succumb to the 

 speed-mania— certainly destructive of the nervous forces 

 — viewing the auto, by and large, it has been a great 

 help to the health of the community. What more 

 wholesome for the tired business man, or the woman 

 jaded with her household cares, or social exactions, 

 than to jump in a car for an hour's spin over smooth 

 roads by green pastures and through fragrant woods ! 



The motor car has not only made it possible for the 

 city dweller to get into the country, but it has made 

 it equally possible for the country dweller to get into 

 the city. It has brought almost the first joy into the 

 farmer's life. In the old days a trip to town, five miles 

 away, behind the faithful but sluggish farm horses 

 was an all-day enterprise — now it is but an incident 

 in the day's activities. Moreover, it has not only per- 

 mitted the town dweller to make swift excursions into 

 the country, but it has enabled him to live in the 

 country six months of the year. The rocky farm ten 

 miles from town, which twenty years ago was not 

 worth the cost of a new front gate, and was abandoned 

 because it was impossible to extract a living from it, 

 now makes a most wholesome and delightful family 

 home from May till November. 



In addition to the great number of pleasure cars 

 alread}^ mentioned, one must also consider the com- 

 mercial vehicle, of which there are now some 36,000, 

 and which are bound to grow in nuni])er with tremen- 

 dous rapidity. These are a boon not only because of 

 their commercial efficiency, but as a humanizing 

 agency. They have done more to relieve the burden 

 of the over-worked draft horse than even the lamented 

 Henry Ijergli, who devoted his whole life — his time, 

 energy and fortune — to that worthy cause. It is prob- 

 ably a very safe conjecture that in two decades draft 

 animals w'ill disappear from the streets of our large 

 cities — greatly to the advantage of the animals as well 

 as of the streets. 



There is no space here to consider the vast addition 



that the motor car has made, in one way or another, 

 to our national wealth, or the great army of people 

 who find profitable employment in its construction 

 and distribution. 



lUit all the blessings, many as they arc, which have 

 come to the human family from the motor vehicle 

 have all been made possible by the rubber tire. Re- 

 move that and those million pleasure cars would rust 

 in the garage, and the motor trucks would soon jolt 

 themselves into the junk heau. 



CONCERNING CALENDARS. 



\Y/ ' ' '^ ^'^'-' '-"'"iiiiig >3f every glad New Year comes 

 "" tlie annual crop of calendars. Large and small; 

 plain and ornate ; with pictures of fair faces embowered 

 in roses, and severe factory fronts with dense smoke 

 (indicative of extreme activity) rolling up into the sky ; 

 with figures large enough to stare one in the face across 

 the street, and so small as to require microscopic re- 

 search to decipher them — calendars of infinite variety ; 

 but all welcome, for they serve a purpose and fulfill 

 a mission. 



Occasionally some profound person rises to remark: 

 "Why does anybody get out a calendar? People have 

 Ijeen getting calendars for 50 years and they are tired 

 and sick of them." Which is fully as wise as it would 

 be to say : "\\'hy does anj-one start a restaurant? Peo- 

 ple ha\-e been eating for 6,000 years and they are bored 

 to death with it." Anything that supplies a constantly 

 recurring want will continue popular as long as the 

 want recurs. The great public will still be asking for 

 calendars in the year 19013, provided those hot internal 

 flames (which the geologists assure us are at work in 

 the bowels of the earth) have not by that time broken 

 through the thin crust, and consumed the printing 

 presses. 



?ilany ruljber companies issue calendars everv vear, 

 others issue them from time to time; but they can all 

 rest assured that, if their calendars are attractive and 

 the figures tiiereon comfortably legible, none of them 

 w ill go to waste. To be sure, all the calendar otterings 

 sent to a company may not find a conspicuous place 

 immediately over the president's desk ; but, unless they 

 are hopelessly devoid of grace or utility, they will all 

 find lodgment somewhere, on wall or table, where they 

 will continue industriously at their job — Sundays and 

 holidavs included — for at least 365 davs. 



