Arthur H. Beavan

“ Descending a few steps, and emerging into a tunnelled incline, the perspiring pedestrian quickly found that here, if anywhere, was a refuge from the heat, the coolest place in London, and that it was well worth while, on the pretence of urgent business across the water, to pay twopence each way, merely to drink in the refreshing air wafted backwards and forwards along subway, platform, and tube. ”

“ Even then its advance was slow, and until about three years ago motor-cars were decidedly unpopular. The London street boys—miniature representatives of public opinion—derided them, and, with their usual fiendish lack of sympathy, rejoiced when they came to grief; while ’bus-drivers and cabmen ironically likened all automobiles to traction engines, cherishing the delusion that they continually broke down, cost a small fortune to maintain, and, worse than all, dislocated every bone in their occupants’ bodies. ”

“ Imagination had pictured a great hall, filled with ponderous machinery whose component parts are cranks, steel rods, shafts, and toothed wheels, a wilderness of metal, moving with bewildering rapidity and thunderous power, in an atmosphere redolent of lubricating oil, a vision of whirling wheels, an Ezekiel vision of wheels in the midst of wheels, instinct with life, such as the prophet saw 600 years B.C., by the River Chebar, in the land of the Chaldean. ”

“ MOTOR-CARS AND PUBLIC HIGHWAYS
Who can place a limit to the development of motors! The time may arrive when tram lines will disappear, the roads themselves being of steel and forming a broad rail upon which self-propelled coaches, omnibuses, cabs, and cars will ply in every direction, and far and wide into the suburbs. ”

“ The perfect motor-omnibus, and, for that matter, the perfect ’bus of any kind, has yet to arise, and is suggestive of Darwinism in the length of time required for its evolution. But can London and the long-suffering traveller wait ten million years or so—putting up meanwhile with the inconvenience of existing vehicles—until the omnibus companies wake up, or are superseded by more enterprising business adventurers? ”

“ Like many other things in the world, there is nothing new in the idea of boring a hole through the earth and lining it with brick or iron. As Pope suggests, mankind doubtless learnt the art from Nature, though the correctness of the poet’s zoological knowledge is hardly shown in the examples heading this chapter. For ages past—before London existed—that skilful excavator, the mole, tunnelled through the earth, making roads and galleries, the friction of his fur, set perpendicularly on his skin, lining his tube so that the soil did not fall in. ”

“ In the quiet old days that are gone, a working-man, particularly if a weaver, could labour far away in the country in some miniature workshop or in his own little room at home. But for years past he has been compelled to trudge backwards and forwards to some big factory or mill, where steam-power was concentrated, and run upon so economical a principle, that outside of it the individual workman had no chance of gaining even the barest livelihood. With the advent of steam the villages in certain parts of England were abandoned for the town, where clusters of great workshops had sprung up. ”

“ All nations are being chained together by iron roads or lines of swift steamers, and everybody travels. Locomotion is the order of the day, a sign of the times, and electricity is the great factor that has brought it about. ”

“ It is a city also sacred to literati as being the home of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and is so old-fashioned—or so excessively up-to-date, whichever you please—that, until recently, neither cabs, omnibuses, tubes, or underground railways were to be found within its boundaries. What with the uneven surface and the labyrinth of the streets, Boston is picturesque in spite of itself, and its old buildings emphasize this. ”

“ Now, electricity is a very exact science. There is no mere theory about it; and a unit is a definite quantity of power, known in that science as a “kilowatt hour.” Thus, a kilowatt, or 1,000 watts, is the equivalent in measured work of 11⁄3 horse-power, equal to the lifting of 44,000 lbs. per minute, or the doing of so many units of work, either electric lighting, heating, machinery driving, or traction. ”

“ A workmen’s car, filled with mechanics and labourers on their way to work, suddenly bolted in descending the hill, notwithstanding that the brakes had been duly applied. The weight of the heavily laden vehicle increased the velocity every yard of the way, and a terrific pace was obtained.
There is a sharp curve in the railway at the end of the road. The passengers screamed as they realised their danger. The driver shouted to them to jump off the car, which many did; and the driver and conductor themselves took a leap for their lives, and thus avoided serious injury. ”

“ MONO-RAILWAYS A ONE-RAIL railway! What kind of novelty can that be, emanating no doubt from the prolific brain of some enthusiastic engineer possessed with an idea, a fad, a craze—call it what you will! We are accustomed to highly respectable trains running in an orthodox manner on double rails. A projected, many-railed track we have also heard of to carry ships bodily across the Isthmus of Panama. ”

“ Even though there should be no future increase in street traffic, I believe it to be the imperative duty of the Council to seek a remedy, and how much more when we feel assured that London will keep growing, and that within the next thirty years{142} both a water and locomotive service will have to be provided for an estimated population (in Greater London) of probably not less than ten or twelve million people; and whatever the growth outwards may be, the best system of rapid transit for the central districts will always become more and more essential. ”

“ Electricity as a locomotive force is being presented to the public in various forms. There is the ordinary railway, like the Underground, that, cleansing itself, amending its ways, and becoming converted to the new order of traction, has been granted a new lease of life. Then there are new lines laid down, intended from the first to be electrical, with specially designed cars, diving beneath the Thames, and connecting the north and south of London. These are our metropolitan pioneer electric railways. ”

“ Leopold de Rothschild, who is entitled to speak with authority on the subject, frankly admits that there is much justification for the irritation in the public mind against motor-cars. He strongly condemns rash driving, but, at the same time, maintains that when motor-car owners obey the law and observe the courtesy of the road, they ought not to be looked upon by coachmen, cyclists, and pedestrians, as the enemies of mankind. [9] Nevertheless, he firmly believes that the dislike of motor-cars will die away in due time, just as did the dislike of cycles. ”

“ But when, in July, 1900, the Central London Railway, inaugurated by the Prince of Wales, was opened for traffic, and it was realised that the line was laid literally in the centre of London, beneath one of the greatest street routes in existence, viz. Cheapside, Newgate Street, Holborn, Oxford Street, Bayswater and Uxbridge roads, and was capable of dealing with a gigantic stream of passengers at a uniform fare for any distance, it arrested universal attention, and for a time nothing was talked about but the deep-level system for metropolitan railways ”

“ Extending along the Mersey—that noble river whose tidal movement is said to be four times the outfall of the Mississippi—for a distance of 61⁄2 miles are the Liverpool Docks, in importance undoubtedly the first in the world, but, until the Overhead Railway was opened, exasperatingly inaccessible to business men whose time was valuable, and bewildering to strangers by reason of their immensity. ”

“ A home is a home be it ever so low, and the desperate tenacity with which the poor cling to the last wretched semblance of one is very touching. There are vile dens, fever-haunted and stenchful crowded courts, where the return of summer is dreaded because it means the unloosing of myriads of vermin which render night unbearable, which (the dens) nevertheless are regarded as havens of rest by their hard-working occupants. They can scarcely be said to be furnished. ”

“ Ben Short travelled for a large wholesale firm of watchmakers and jewellers in Clerkenwell, whose warehouse was not far from the junction of Goswell Road and Old Street. Thither Short went to business every day at eight o’clock from Stamford Hill, not by a Tube (“Toob” he called it) , but by the tram which passed his door. He was a first-rate salesman, working on salary and commission, as active and enduring as a bee, but as no travelling expenses within the London district were allowed him, he had to get about as cheaply as possible. ”

“ Apart from such a large project as the electrification of the District and Metropolitan Railways, there is scarcely a municipal authority in Great Britain which has not in hand some scheme of electric railway, tramway, or lighting. It is as well to think that electricity is not the agent of the future, but of the present, and an era which has already dawned. ”

“ The effect of universal electric traction on our social life may be far-reaching and prodigious. It may result in a partial decrease in the resident population of London, the working-classes living largely in the country and travelling up and down at uniform penny fares, clerks and others doing the same; while the wealthy and the well-to-do may use their motor-cars to such an extent as to habitually sleep outside the town boundaries, as may also members of both Houses. Only those persons whose duties compel them, will live within hearing of Big Ben. ”

“ But coal in some districts is dear, and farmers are beginning to find that oil engines are more economical, there being no loss of fuel in the sudden stopping of work during wet weather; but petrol has a nasty trick of not vaporising readily when it is frosty, and here electricity steps in with an admirable force-motif.
With a dependable electro-motor, the farmer may work his self-binder all day long in the harvest-field, and at-night send it up to market with produce. ”

“ That has died out, not because cyclists ride more slowly, but because the public has come to realise that, with a readily controllable vehicle like the bicycle, the greater speeds are not dangerous. Similarly the public is now much exercised in mind concerning speeds of twenty to twenty-five miles an hour by motor-cars. It will not be long before they realise that these velocities are quite safe under certain conditions, and that the motor-car might almost under any circumstances be allowed to travel twice as fast as a horse, indeed even faster. ”

“ In London all the big termini will be linked together, and connected with the metropolitan Tube systems, whatever form the latter may ultimately assume. This may have the effect of increasing the crowding and bustling of our big stations, but, on the other hand, a vast number of wealthy people will use motor-cars from “house-to-house,” dispensing altogether with the railway.
Trains, more speedily and more economically run, will start more frequently. Goods traffic will be on entirely separate lines, and passenger trains will be able to follow one another in rapid and safe succession. ”

“ Aggressive at first, it has relinquished the altruistic theories of youth, and it now realises the fact that it is a body of trustees acting not for one class only, but that it must administer its heritage in the interests of the community at large. Jealousy of its powers is dying out, and by comprehensive and energetic action it justifies itself as the one central privileged body able to deal with the highway, and with the housing problem of Modern Babylon. ”

“ I regard the motor-car as a source of intense enjoyment. Allow the owners greater freedom, but take care that in return they loyally observe the regulations which are framed by competent authorities for the safety of the public. ”

“ So great was the rush during some part of those days that a two minutes’ service of cars had to be provided.
The extension from Twickenham to Hampton Court{159} was opened by Mr. C. T. Yerkes, the Chairman, and author of the happy alliance of train, tube, and tram, which may possibly enable many toilers in the East End to live in the country. At the least, it will give them the chance, when possessed of a little leisure and a few pence, to quickly exchange their sordid environment for one of the numerous sylvan spots which surround London, especially in the west. ”

“ In the moral world there have always been mono-railists, men of one fixed idea, from which they could not, or would not, budge—apostles of an ambition, a creed, a theory, a political conviction. The world has had its Alexander the Great, its Napoleon, Buddha, St. Paul, Mahomet, Martin Luther, Ignatius Loyola, Wycliffe, its Palissy, George Stephenson, Mungo Park, John Bright, and Cobden. ”