Ah, a good time! Neither of us are in the least likely to see a better! For during these fifteen years there has come upon our land a strange thing, a kind of plague of heartlessness; the return, perhaps, of mechanically civilized man to the brute, or (if that be too strong) at least to the ruling-out of all gracious consideration for the rights of wayfarers. I am sure that the "motoring-habit" is more poisonous and more injurious to the nations in this Year of Grace, 1911, than all the poisons that ever were "listed." It is the Indian hemp of the soul, which makes even good men mad. The earth may still belong to the Lord, though, standing afar off, I have sometimes my doubts. But of a certainty the roads between city and city, the creeper-hung village street where, generation after generation, children played, the quiet lanes where the old folk walked arm in arm, are now given over to the Minotaur whose name is "My Lord Teuf-Teuf." Every day in all lands (called civilized) the journals are filled with a lengthening tale of victims--of the little child going to school, bag on back; the bairn playing with his soldiers in the dust; the deaf old lady walking along the lanes, so safe and quiet a few years ago. I can see her pattering about, looking for a few roses to grace her room--roses to dream over, roses to call back the good days now past for ever. "HRRUMPH! HRRUMPH!" It is the trump of doom--behind her, unseen, to her unheard. And in the next number of the local paper there will be the briefest of paragraphs: "No blame attaches to the proprietor or to his excellent and competent chauffeur." Sometimes, if one has the honor to be run over by the Highest of the High Born, they do inquire for you at the hospital, or even send a wreath for the coffin. For this one should even be content to die. And the paragraphs in the papers recording the gift quite make up to the mourners for their loss. But even so, this is on the heights of motoring generosity. For at least _noblesse_ does sometimes oblige. But the more recently and the more ignobly the Over-Slaughterman has been enriched, the more ignorant of all knowledge he is, the less he has seen of other lands, the fewer incursions he has made into the world of books and art, the less he possesses of that kindly natural consideration which the King-Gentleman shares with the Working-Gentleman--the more cruel and selfish he is when he gets himself upon the road, rushing along, disguised to the eyes, fakir-mad in a kind of devilish Juggernaut joy, to the holocaust of innumerable innocent victims. "_The police failed to obtain the number of the car which caused the accident._"