1908] 



on the Modern Motor Gar and its Effects. 



163 



LONDOK^. 



The following table shows the number of vehicles of each kind 

 met in walking or driving about in the streets of London on the 

 days in question : — 



On country main roads the traffic is about half and half divided 

 between mechanically and horse drawn. The proportion of motor 

 cars to other traffic is, moreover, increasing every year. 



While the motor car is lowering the value of town houses and 

 their rents and rates, it is increasing the value of country houses by 

 adding to their accessibility, especially where they are at some distance 

 from stations. The great increase in the week-end habit to some 

 extent may be attributed to the increase in the use of motor cars. 

 Good railway services have existed for some time past in many 

 directions, but the difficulty lay in getting from the station to the 

 country house, possibly some six or eight miles away, and the fact 

 that the best expresses, stopping only at a few important stations, 

 were of no assistance to many dwellers in the intermediate country. 

 The motor car is now altering these conditions, for at important 

 stations on main lines every Friday and Saturday, will be seen 

 motor cars waiting to take their owners and their guests not merely 

 four or six miles to their homes, but often anything between ten and 

 thirty miles, saving sometimes over an hour from door to door 

 which used to be absorbed by changing into a slow train which had 

 to stop at all intermediate stations. Increased train facihties are thus 

 available by enabling the motorist to use the more important centres 

 where expresses are frequent and fast. Many people are consequently 

 laying out money on purchasing sites or building on long leases in 

 locahties where, until now, they would never have dreamt of setthng. 

 Country life is also becoming less dull, for the neighbourhood — using 

 that word in its proper sense — instead of being confined to a six-mile 

 radius is now widened to a sixty-mile circle. Some recluses may think 

 this a drawback, but on the whole it makes for more friendships and 

 greater sociability. It is no uncommon thing now to ask friends to 

 come over to lunch from thirty or forty miles away — a matter of one 



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