A lamentable catastrophe occurred in February this year in London, when Mr. George Edward Colebrook, an Australian merchant, of St. Mary Axe, E.C., lost his life. It appeared that on the previous Sunday the deceased went for his first motor-car ride with his brother-in-law, accompanied also by the owner of the car and a professional driver. There had been a sharp fall of snow and hail, and the roads were in a bad state. When attempting to pass at a moderate pace another car in the Finchley Road, near the Royal Oak at Hendon, the hind wheels skidded. The car turned round and ran against a raised footpath and then overturned. Mr. Colebrook was fatally injured, and died on Tuesday night from concussion of the brain, having been unconscious from the time of the accident. His brother-in-law received a fractured arm and other injuries. THE GENERAL VERDICT Thus much for the opposition, and the _Advocatus Diaboli_ now resumes his seat. His accusations appear formidable; but it might be justly pointed out that if a catalogue were compiled of the serious results caused by the shortcomings of the horse, motor-car accidents would be found few in comparison. It might be demonstrated that in twelve days 17 persons had been killed and 143 injured in accidents attributable to that noble animal. When the foregoing tram and motor casualties are analysed, it will be found that the majority were due to lack of control over the brake power, to ignorance, or to careless driving. As I have observed before, many evils have been laid to the charge of electric traction. Last year it was reported in the papers that a young woman had been instantaneously killed at Shepherd’s Bush by the overhead wires. The fatality was attributed to one of the guide-wires breaking at the extreme end (an accident which had really occurred on the line), but it had been replaced _before_ the young lady fell down in the road, and it was proved at the inquest that she died in the normal way of heart disease. In the old coaching days the dire forebodings of evil arising from travelling by steam were much more comprehensive than those of the present day from electric travelling. Horse-breeding, it was said, would cease and farmers become ruined, their crops perhaps destroyed by sparks from passing engines; human beings would be asphyxiated while rushing through the air at tremendous speeds; high roads would fall to rack and ruin; and every innkeeper on coach routes would be bankrupted! In fact, a lamentable social revolution was bound to be brought about by Stephenson’s pestilential proposals! Of electrical traction, its greatest detractors can only urge--and with truth--that it is not yet without drawbacks, not yet so perfected as to render accidents impossible. And the _Advocatus Diaboli_, after due consideration of his own arguments, generously acknowledges that he has failed to make out his case. CHAPTER XXI _ELECTRIC LOCOMOTION AND OUR NATIONAL LIFE_