Some time has elapsed since the foregoing paragraph was written for an earlier edition of this work, and during that period there has been an advance in both practice and opinion; so that now it has become highly probable that before the century ends a great change may be witnessed in our modes of locomotion, even on ordinary roads. Already every town of importance throughout the United Kingdom has been provided with excellent tramways, along which, in not a few instances, horseless vehicles roll smoothly, to the great convenience of the general public, while not one of the difficulties and dangers to general street traffic has been experienced that were so confidently predicted by those who were unable to perceive that an innovation might be an improvement. The now universally-popular bicycle has been continually receiving improvements, of which there appears to be no end, and as the machine and all the contrivances connected with it are so familiar to everyone, there is no need here to do more than to refer to them, because they have led the way to great improvements in ordinary carriages. The steam-propelled vehicle for common roads has just been mentioned as an invention belonging to the first half of the century, and the reasons it did not find favour have been alluded to. There exists in the United Kingdom a law concerning horseless carriages travelling on highways, which was passed to apply to traction engines, and enacts that other than horse vehicles are not to go along a road at a greater speed than four miles an hour, and only two miles an hour through a town, and moreover they are to be preceded by a man bearing a red flag, etc. But a bill has been introduced (1895) into the legislature to amend this law, and permit the British people to use on their common roads such light self-propelled carriages as are becoming popular in France, as may be seen from the following account:—