Automobile Biographies: An Account of the Lives and the Work of Those Who Have Been Identified with the Invention and Development of Self-Propelled Vehicles on the Common RoadsWeeks, Lyman Horace
History
Automobile Biographies: An Account of the Lives and the Work of Those Who Have Been Identified with the Invention and Development of Self-Propelled Vehicles on the Common Roads
Weeks, Lyman Horace
Automobiles -- History
The English magazine, Engineering, in an article in June, 1866, said:
"This steam carriage, made by Carrett, Marshall & Co., was probably the
most remarkable locomotive ever made. True, it did little good for itself
as a steam carriage, and its owner at last made a present of it--much as
an Eastern prince might send a friend a white elephant--to that
enthusiastic amateur, Mr. Frederick Hodges, who christened it the
Fly-by-Night, and who did fly, and no mistake, through the Kentish
villages when most honest people were in their beds. Its enterprising
owner was repeatedly pulled up and fined, and to this day his exploits are
remembered against him." Hodges ran the engine eight hundred miles; he had
six summonses in six weeks, and one was for running the engine thirty
miles an hour. It was afterwards altered to resemble a fire engine and the
passengers were equipped like firemen, wearing brass helmets. The device
did not deceive the police, and finally the carriage was made over into a
real self-moving fire engine.
RICHARD TANGYE
The steam carriage built by the Tangye Brothers, of England, about 1852,
was a simple affair. It had seating capacity in the body for six or eight
persons, while three or four more could be accommodated in front. The
driver who sat in front had full control of the stop valve and reversing
lever, so that the engine could be stopped or reversed by him as occasion
required. The speed of twenty miles an hour could be attained, and the
engine with its load easily ascended the steepest gradients.
Richard Tangye, in his autobiography, speaks of his experience with this
carriage in the following terms: "Great interest was manifested in our
experiment, and it soon became evident that there was an opening for a
considerable business in these engines, and we made our preparations
accordingly, but the 'wisdom' of Parliament made it impossible. The
squires became alarmed lest their horses should take fright; and although
a judge ruled that a horse that would not stand the sight or sound of a
locomotive, in these days of steam, constituted a public danger, and that
its owner should be punished and not the owner of the locomotive, an act
was passed providing that no engine should travel more than four miles an
hour on the public roads. Thus was the trade in quick-speed locomotives
strangled in its cradle; and the inhabitants of country districts left
unprovided with improved facilities for traveling." The Tangye carriage
thus driven out of England was sent to India, where it continued to give
good service.
T. W. COWAN
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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