Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/582

 The Gasoline Caddy and Errand Boy

With a gasoline foot -cart one boy does the work of three

��A GROCER on Manhattan Island, New York, has bought a gasoline foot- cart for his special delivery service. The result has been an increase in business

��stands while driving and his weight is carried between the wheel centers, so that the balance is easily maintained. He leans on the handlebar for support and to steady

���At left: The foot-cart is used as a tender on the automobile to summon help to the car in a hurry

Below: The golf caddy finds it a convenience and an economizer of time and temper over the links

��as well as a saving in money of $21.60 a week. Formerly this grocery, which also handles meat, paid three boys to handle special rush orders for late dinners at the rate of twelve dollars each a week in addition to their ex- penses of about six dollars a week. One gasoline foot-cart now does the work of the three boys.

Gasoline and oil for the gas -cart costs about forty cents a day, each day's work averaging one hundred miles. The machine itself costs only one hundred dollars. Hence the grocery saves over $1100 a year. Even if a new cart is bought every year the annual saving is still one thousand dollars.

The foot -cart is also being used by golf caddies; by salesmen who make many calls a day; by a theatrical producer who uses it as a tender on his automobile to summon help in case the large machine gets into a mudhole when he is in a hurry to be on his way, and by factory messengers in large plants.

This miniature one-passenger machine has a pressed steel platform, suspended about four inches from the ground between pneumatically tired wheels. The motor is attached to the front wheel. The rider

���The delivery boy speeds away at the rate of twen- ty-five miles an hour with his basket on his arm

��himself, steering and controlling the operation of the machine at the same time. Both the brake and the clutch are operated by moving the handlebar forward or backward. The speed can be regu- lated as desired, twenty-five miles an hour being about the maximum. The delivery boy carries his basket on his arm, and if he has other bundles to be delivered on the same trip he secures them to the sloping front of the foot-platform and sails away with perfect ease and evident enjoyment. His machine is so narrow thai he can make his way through crowded thoroughfares without slackening speed.

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