The first cost of an electric carriage varies very much. Buggies and runabouts are advertised from $750 to $1,500; phaetons and stanhopes at from $2,000 to $3,000; omnibuses at from $3,000 to $4,000. The first cost, it will be seen, is greater or less than carriages with horses, according to the value of the horses. There is an idea that horses are now going begging in the market, and that fine animals can be purchased for little or nothing. This is very erroneous. A fine horse is as valuable in the market as ever he was; it is only the very common horse that does not command a good price. A man, therefore, can pay as much as he pleases for a good horse, but he cannot get one for a song. If, therefore, a good driving horse is worth $250 and a pair worth $500, we see that a turnout with a horse or a pair of horses does not cost so

The

very much less than a motor vehicle. saving is in the keep. A poor horse eats his head off every day, and it costs at least $30 a month to keep and shoe any horse a gentleman would care to drive. The cost of the electricity at a central station for a vehicle that would do the work of two horses, if the horses could work twice as long as is possible, would be only $25 a month. There is where the saving comes in-in the cost of the keep and the amount of work performed. Even when common horses are used and the first cost much reduced, a comparison shows that the electric vehicle is cheaper, though the interest on the investment be computed. A two-horse wagon, with two horses and the harness for them, may be bought for $700; an electric wagon corresponding in carrying capacity may be had for $2,250. Now, to stable, shoe

of foot-passengers. In this country, however, an automobile driver has no more license to run down a pedestrian than has that of any other vehicle. As most of the vehicles belong to incorporated companies, it is a wise economy to employ only expert drivers, for juries exercise a sympathetic discretion in assessing damages when a corporation is a defendant in a suit at law. And a driver of an electric vehicle has both hands full while both of his feet are employed. With his left hand he manages the power lever, pushing it forward one notch at a time to increase

his speed. With his right hand he controls the steering lever. His left heel is on the emergency switch, and his left toes ring the gong. With his right heel he turns the reversing switch, while he can apply the brake with either foot that happens to be disengaged. A man can learn to do all this in a week, big job though it seems. If he has had experience in driving horses in a crowded city, he learns more quickly; for the automobile requires alertness of eyes, hands, and mind, as well as natural quickness of movement.

It

As has been suggested, improvements in the future are to be expected in the electric motors, but at this time the gasoline motor, for general use both in the city and country, appears to be the most practical and the most economical. is lighter and cheaper, and no charging station or charging plant is necessary. Gasoline is cheap and is obtainable everywhere. Gasoline carriages are, however, more subject to vibrations, and the passengers are rarely free from the unpleasant odors of burned gases. The most successful of the French automobiles are of this kind, and the long-distance races on the Continent have generally been won by them. A speed of fifty miles an hour has been maintained for short distances, and thirty miles an hour has been kept up for long distances, but even abroad this is exceptional. Of course such rapid traveling is out of the question in this country in the present condition of our roads. And even in France, where the roads are excellent, and an injured pedestrian is the culprit, such a rate of speed is for sport, and not for business, except