Page:Motoring Magazine and Motor Life February 1915.djvu/20

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Paris 'Buses Before the War.

"Your numbers, messieurs!" yells the conductor, as a Parisian auto 'bus charges up to the curb.

And a throng of prospective passengers jostle about his platform, flourishing small tickets of colored paper. "Forty-seven!" he calls, reading off the number of the lowest ticket offered him. "Forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty!" he continues&mdash;"and that'll be all!"

A jerk of the bell cord, and off darts the loaded 'bus.

This scene is bewildering at first to the foreigner, yet it really manifests the detailed efficiency of the wonderful Paris auto 'bus service, a service of urban transportation which until the war demoralized it was next to London's, the finest in the world.

The Paris 'buses stop only at certain fixed points. Here, in an ornamental shelter house, or attached to an arc-lamp post, is a small case of numbered paper tabs, much like the pad of soda checks at a drug store fountain.

Each would be passenger, as soon as he reaches the stop, tears off the top number, and when the 'bus arrives, the conductor lets the waiting people on in the order of the numbers which they hold, showing the order of their arrival at the stop.

The Paris auto 'buses carry thirty-two or thirty-four passengers each. The last available figures showed over one thousand of these 'buses in Paris, running on nearly two hundred miles of streets.

The passenger on a Paris auto 'bus can ride in all the luxury of a private limousine, if he chooses to pay a "high" rate of fare&mdash;that is, a fare as high as American street car companies demand for the privilege of suspending oneself to their famous straps.

The Paris 'bus is divided into two compartments, first and second class. First class compartment seats are covered with red leather. All the fittings are highly polished, the ceilings are white, the whole compartment is beautifully clean, well-lighted and unmarred by ugly advertising cards.

For two cents you can ride a distance of 1&#8542; miles in second class, 3 cents being the first class price. For three cents second class and 5 cents first you can ride the entire length of the line.

In addition, there are special workingmen's rates. All those taking a 'bus before 7 :30 a. m. are entitled to ride in any part of the 'bus for second class fare, and by paying 1 cent in addition to the regular fare, receive a return ticket good coming back on the same line at any time the second afternoon. Thus for 4 cents a workingman can go across town in the morning and return home at night. The same trip in an American city would cost probably 10 cents.

The congestion in the central Paris streets is often extraordinary, yet the 'buses make remarkably good time, and accidents are few. Moreover, many Paris streets are extremely narrow and tortuous, the pavements are in many places no better than in American cities, and there are numerous severe grades to climb. In addition, the fuel oils are expensive, being heavily taxed both by the State and the city. Yet in spite of these difficulties, the company was making money before the war, and the Paris populace was thoroughly satisfied with the service.



Woman's Wit.

Miss Frances B. Ludlow, 20 years old, of 20 Euclid avenue, Yonkers, offered what Magistrate Krotel declared was the best excuse he had ever heard when she was arraigned in the Morrisania court, charged with running her automobile at the rate of thirty-two miles an hour. "I saw a motorcycle behind me," explained Miss Ludlow. "He was coming so fast I was actually afraid he was going to run into me. I went faster and faster, trying to keep out of his way and avoid an accident, but he put on more speed until he shot past me, and then he held up his hand for me to stop, announcing he was an officer. Why, I was never so surprised in my life." The magistrate grinned as he suspended sentence, but he warned Miss Ludlow to be more careful in future.



Some Hike for Help.

After walking eighteen miles and a half from a point between Chico and Oroville on the Oroville road, Mrs. George Daniels and Miss Leola Stewart, the latter with one of her shoes missing, arrived in Chico at 10:30 one night recently.

The automobile in which they had been riding toward Chico had become stranded eleven miles from Chico at four o'clock Monday afternoon. They were given a ride back seven miles and a half in another automobile to a house where they could telephone for help. They telephoned to Chico to get another automobile to tow the stranded machine and themselves to Chico. Help didn't arrive. A local taxicab man with a machine started to the rescue. He was the help that didn't arrive. He failed to locate the women. They waited until dark and then started to walk. Although only five and a half miles from Oroville, they picked Chico for their destination and started to "hoof it." They had two streams to cross. One was deep enough to force them to remove their shoes. Miss Stewart lost one on the way across and came the rest of the way with only one shoe.



Cities Can Pass Auto Laws.

Cities possess absolute sovereign powers in the enactment of all municipal legislation and can enact both civil and criminal laws pertaining to municipal affairs, without the slightest interference by the legislature, according to a decision rendered recently by the Oregon Supreme Court in the case of Peter Kalich vs. F. C. Knapp. Knapp brought the action to recover damages sustained in a collision with an automobile driven by the defendant in Portland, contending that the defendant was driving at an unlawful rate of speed. To prove negligence in that respect, the plaintiff offered some ordinances of the City of Portland limiting the speed of vehicles. State Circuit Judge Henry E. McGinn sustained an objection to the introduction of these ordinances on the ground that they had been superceded by an act of the legislature known as the Oregon motor vehicle law. Last June, Supreme Court Justice Chas. N. McNary reversed this decision, and, on a rehearing, majority members of the court upheld the reversal.