across the frozen fens—all these are things of which the reminiscence and the echo come back to us with the dash and pulsations of the motor-car. Even Dr. Johnson thought that nothing was so delightful as the rapid motion of the post-chaise. I should like to have given the sage a lift in a motorcar, and gained for the world the testimony to a sensation of delight by a philosopher theretofore undreamt of in his philosophy.
And in this pleasure of motion we are, if not independent of the weather, at least almost independent of seasons. The hotter the sun the more agreeable the fanning of the air through which we pass, and the cold of winter, guarded against in proper fashion, carries with it its own exhilaration. To my mind the greatest pleasures and the greatest advantages derivable from the motor-car are the power of traversing large areas of the beautiful country in which it is our happiness to live. The use of motors in town is increasing and, doubtless, will greatly increase. It is no small advantage to be able to go from place to place with no thought of tiring horses and no fear of cold through waiting. But even to those living in towns, the country contributes most to the pleasure of possessing a motor. At one of the dinners of the Automobile Club, when it was suggested that motors had a future in bringing agricultural produce to the large towns, the audience agreed with the observation that, if it was. desirable that the motor should bring cabbages to the workman, it was still more desirable for the motor to take the workman to the cabbages. For myself, after a long day in Court, I often feel that I am a workman who wants to be taken to the cabbages. I remember hearing it said that, in his last illness, Lord Beaconsfield derived great pleasure and benefit from driving in the lanes of the north of London, amid surroundings of the rural character of which, so near London, he had hitherto little idea. Where are those lanes now after an interval of only twenty years? The ring of suburban habitations grows constantly deeper and denser, and it is, I think, an invaluable
