484 History of Inland Transport 



and economic progress. Do not such possibilities still further 

 suggest, also, the eventual supersession of the small trader 

 by the large one ? 



In almost every class of trade or business the commercial 

 motor is being steadily substituted for horsed vehicles. There 

 are large retail houses in London which have each their 

 " fleets " of up to fifty or sixty mo tor- vans or lorries. 1 The 

 carrying companies would hardly be able to provide their 

 extensive suburban services of to-day without road motors. 

 Fishmongers, ice merchants and fruit salesmen, who especially 

 require to have a speedy means of distributing their wares, 

 favour the commercial motor no less than do the managers 

 of evening newspapers. Laundry companies to whose 

 business a great impetus has been given of late years by the 

 increasing resort to residential flats find commercial motors 

 of great service in the collections that have to be made on 

 Mondays and Tuesdays and the deliveries effected on Fridays 

 and Saturdays. Furniture-removers, by resorting either, for 

 small removals, to motors carrying pantechnicons, or, for 

 large removals, to traction-engines and regular road trains, 

 can now cover distances of up to 100 or 150 miles a day, the 

 " record " down to the autumn of 1911 being 166 miles in a 

 day. Brewers, mineral-water manufacturers, oil companies, 

 coal merchants, pianoforte-makers, brick-makers and scores 

 of other traders, besides, are all taking to the new form of 

 street or road transport. 



Motor-vehicles are likewise succeeding horsed vehicles for 

 fire-engines, municipal water-carts and dust-carts, street 

 ambulances, Post Office mail- vans, 2 char-a-bancs and estate 

 cars, the last-mentioned being constructed so that they can be 

 used either for passengers or for goods. Theatrical companies 

 on tour use motor-vehicles for the conveyance of themselves, 

 plus belongings and- scenery. Political propagandists, also on 

 tour, move in their motor-van from one village to another 

 with an ease that no other road vehicle could surpass. Reli- 

 gious missions are being sent out in motor- vans fitted up as 



1 The total number of commercial motor-vehicles working in the London 

 district in August, 1911, was, according to statistics compiled by "Com- 

 mercial Motor," 3500. 



2 Mails are now being sent out from London every night by motor-vans 

 for distances of up to 100 miles. 



