But although Nether Stowey is tolerant of all these things, it is not calm when motor-cars are under discussion. It would raise licences to £50 per annum, reduce speed to ten miles an hour on the open roads and three miles in villages and towns, and both heavily fine and award long terms of imprisonment to any who transgressed these suggested limits. Also, Nether Stowey suggests the reintroduction of turnpike-gates; or, to speak by the card, “tarnpayke-geäts.” By all this, it will be perceived that automobiles have become a nuisance, a terror, and a source of injury to Nether Stowey; as they have to countless other villages similarly circumstanced. _THE MOTOR TERROR_ Upon the pleasant country road The motor-lorry runs; Its build is huge and clumsy, and It weighs some seven tons. And when its cylinder backfires, It sounds like gatling-guns! Hark! down the village street there comes The motor “charry bong”: And, gracious heavens! how it hums! ’Tis tall, and broad, and long; And see its mountain-range of seats, Filled with a motley throng. Old Giles, who hobbled down our street, Now he’s in—Paradise. A Panhard took him in the rear, And shattered both his thighs, They gave the chauffeur “three months’ hard” When tried at next Assize. The motor-bus, with skid and lurch And awkward equipoise, Now fleets on Sundays past the church, With hideous whirr and noise. You cannot hear the parson preach; It drowns the organ’s voice. And children from the Sunday School Hang on behind, before Our little Billy lost his hold: Now he’s (alas!) no more! They rolled him pretty flat. His soul’s Gone to the Distant Shore. Racing, toot-tooting, slithering, The private owner goes; The dust he raises fills the eyes, His petrol-reek the nose; His face he hides behind a mask: He wears the weirdest clothes. Now thanks to thee, thou callous fiend, For the lesson thou hast taught: Thus hast thou shown us how our lives And comfort are as naught, So you may, reckless, go your way And take your murd’ring sport! [Illustration: THE COLERIDGE COTTAGE, NETHER STOWEY]