GASOLENE 27 



of time to dominate them. Up to 1896 automobiles 

 were prohibited from running on the English public 

 roads faster than four miles an hour and even then the 

 law required that a man should walk in front waving a 

 red flag. This had a tendency to hamper the develop- 

 ment of the automobile in England. Just so, a hun- 

 dred years before, Parliament had refused to allow a 

 thirty-mile railroad to be built on which Stephenson's 

 engine could run from Manchester to the sea. Thomas 

 Creevy, who was on the committee that killed the bill in 

 1825, writes in his diary: 



Well this devil of a railway is strangled at last . . . this infernal 

 nuisance the loco-motive Monster, carrying eighty tons of goods, 

 and navigated by a tail of smoke and sulphur, coming through 

 every man's grounds between Manchester and Liverpool. 



Now the situation is reversed and the auto has the 

 upper hand. It is already proposed to prohibit the use 

 of horses in New York City within a few years. Cer- 

 tainly anybody with a heart, who has seen the city in a 

 snowstorm when the poor horses slip and fall on the icy 

 pavement and have to be whipped to force them 

 through the drifts with a light load, will rejoice when 

 they have been displaced by the tireless and unfeeling 

 truck. Suppose there had never been horses and livery 

 stables in the city. What would happen to the man who 

 tried to introduce them ? The police, the health depart- 

 ment, the humane societies and the street cleaners would 

 unite to banish horses from the city, but they would 

 have to work quickly to get ahead of the mob. In any 

 innovation the majority of men see the disadvantages 



