THE CONQUEST OF TIME AND SPACE 



with an economic question. This law provided that, 

 in the case of any locomotive moving on a public high- 

 way, the number of persons required to drive the 

 engine should be increased to three, and that the vehicle 

 should be preceded by a man with a red flag. 



The latter provision suggests at first sight that the 

 British legislator had here been moved to curiously 

 un-British f acetiousness ; but there was really no such 

 intent, as another provision of the law, limiting the maxi- 

 mum speed to four miles an hour, sufficiently testifies. 



Other laws of similar tenor supported this one, and 

 the validity of these decrees was finally sustained 

 through an appeal to the Court of Queen's Bench, 

 which brought forth the decision that the law applied 

 to every type of self-propelled vehicle from the trac- 

 tion engine to the Bateman steam tricycle. Naturally 

 this decision gave the quietus to automobile — or, to 

 use the more English word, motor car — ^progress in 

 Great Britain. 



It appears, then, that the idea of an automobile 

 travelling on an ordinary highway preceded that of the 

 locomotive railway. It was, indeed, by far the more 

 natural idea of the two, since tramways were at that 

 time but little used outside of collieries. And it seems 

 scarcely open to doubt that the repressive legislation 

 was directly responsible for deflecting the progress of 

 mechanical invention away from what seemed the 

 more natural direction of development. It is always 

 hazardous in such a case to attempt to guess what 

 might-have-been under different circumstances; but 

 considering the practical results already achieved as 



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