ers; the danger just now is that they will go to
the other extreme and copy too blindly.

In the hands of experts, the foreign racing-cars are the most
perfect road locomotives yet devised; for touring over American
roads in the hands of the amateur they are worse than useless; and
even experts have great difficulty in running week in and week out
without serious breaks and delays. To use a slang phrase, "They
will not stand the racket." However "stunning" they look on
asphalt and macadam with their low, rakish bodies, resplendent in
red and polished brass, on country roads they are very frequently
failures. A thirty horse-power foreign machine costing ten or
twelve thousand dollars, accompanied by one or more expert
mechanics, may make a brilliant showing for a week or so; but when
the time is up, the ordinary, cheap, country-looking, American
automobile will be found a close second at the finish; not that it
is a finer piece of machinery, for it is not; but it has been
developed under the adverse conditions prevailing in this country
and is built to surmount them. The maker in this country who runs
his machine one hundred miles from his factory, would find fewer
difficulties between Paris and Berlin.

The temptation is great to purchase a foreign machine on sight;
resist the temptation until you have ridden in it over a hundred
miles of sandy, clayey, and hilly American roads; you may then
defer the purchase indefinitely, unless you expect to carry along
a man.

Machine for machine, regardless of price, the comparison is
debatable; but price for price, there is no comparison whatsoever;
in fact, there is no inexpensive imported machine which compares
for a moment with the American product.

A single-cylinder motor possesses a few great advantages to
compensate for many disadvantages; it has fewer parts to get out
of order, and troubles can be much more quickly located and
overcome. Two, three, and four cylinders run with less vibration
and are better in every way, except that with every cylinder added
the chances of troubles are multiplied, and the difficulty of
locating them increased. Each cylinder must have its own
lubrication, its ignition, intake, and exhaust mechanisms,--the
quartette that is responsible for nine-tenths of the stops.

Beyond eight or ten horse-power the single cylinder is hardly
practicable. The kick from the explosion is too violent, the
vibration and strain too great, and power is lost