A good deal of ingenuity has been exercised upon the electrical equipment of broughams; and it is probable that further improvements will be made. In some cases the front axle is driven by the motor; in some cases the back axle. The earliest cars used toothed-wheel gearing in order to reduce the speed of the small fast-running motor. Improved types on this principle still exist, but there are some interesting forms in which the motors are placed right at the hub of the wheels and effect speed reduction and control by electrical means, without any intermediate gearing. In addition to these improvements, the storage battery itself has made a distinct advance in design and construction. It is more efficient, more durable, and more reliable now than ever it was before. The closer attention given to its treatment tends in the same direction; and the result is that storage-battery makers and engineers have a very accurate knowledge of what the accumulator will do at a certain cost under certain conditions. The conditions being the variable factors in the problem, and being in large measure determinable by choice, it is rather remarkable that the engineers and financiers should have selected, at the outset, the very conditions which were least suited to the peculiarities of the accumulator. The attempt to adapt battery traction to tramway work is a conspicuous case in point, but it is not perhaps so conspicuous in the public memory as the efforts to organise electric cab and electric omnibus services in London and elsewhere. These efforts have been made so often and failed so regularly that they have made it difficult to obtain capital for any form of electric battery propulsion. The electric omnibus has many of the drawbacks of the storage-battery tramcar, but they are not so serious in the case of an urban service, adequately met by small cars running at moderate speeds on short routes with moderate gradients. It is possible that if recent metropolitan electric omnibus enterprises had been as happy in their finance as in their engineering, they would have succeeded well enough. But even in their engineering they had to meet great difficulties. They sought to protect themselves against excessive costs by entering into maintenance agreements with the makers of the batteries; and although the terms of these agreements were satisfactory enough, their validity depended on careful treatment of the batteries by the drivers of the cars--a matter which it is rather difficult to guarantee. Moreover, the number of omnibuses put on the road was so small that the garage costs and other standing charges were proportionally very heavy. With a larger fleet and with efficient organisation, much better results might have been achieved in spite of the inherent difficulties of the situation.