aveling at the
rate of eighteen miles an hour can be stopped in a distance of
twenty-five feet. The knowledge that this can be done in an emergency
is a great comfort, but it should be equally well known that it does
not improve the car to make all stops that way. Yet how often are
drivers seen tearing up to the curb at twenty miles an hour or more to
slam on the brakes at the last instant with a violence that nearly
causes the car to turn a somersault, bringing it to a standstill in
twenty feet, when there was no earthly reason why they should not have
used four times that distance. Or if occasion arises for slowing down
in a crowded street, the same kind of driver throws out his clutch and
applies the brakes with the throttle wide open so the motor can race
unhindered.

With the greenhorn the automobile is long-suffering. There was a new
owner in Boston, whose name is mercifully suppressed, who took his
family out for a first ride. In going down a hill on which the clay was
slippery from recent rain it became necessary to turn out for a car
coming up. The new driver made the turn so successfully that he turned
clear over the edge of the embankment. Having nothing but air to
support it, the auto turned completely over without spilling a
passenger and landed right side up and on an even keel in a marsh
fifteen feet below. It was necessary to get a team to pull the car out
of the mud, but once on the solid road the new owner simply cranked 'er
up and went on his way rejoicing.

Another new owner could not find the key to fasten one rear wheel on
the axle when he unloaded his auto from the car in which it had been
shipped from the factory. Nevertheless, he started up the motor
according to directions and traveled twelve miles with one wheel
driving. By this time the outraged motor was red hot. Whereupon the new
owner stopped at a farm-house and dashed several buckets of cold water
on it. Then he plugged around the country a week or so before he
decided to go to the agent to lodge a complaint that his derned car
didn't "pull" well.

Still another new owner complained that his car did not give
satisfactory service. The agent was not at all surprised that it didn't
when, upon investigation, he found that the car had been driven five
hundred miles without a single drop of oil being applied to
transmission gear and rear axle.

George Robertson, the racing driver, in tuning up for the Vanderbilt
race, went over the embank