nd sidewalks, the planting of trees, and
for general administrative expenses.

[Illustration: Kilometre Stones in France]

Excepting for twenty kilometres or so around Paris, the vehicular
traffic on the country roads of France does not seem to be in any way
excessive. The style of vehicles in France that carry into the cities
farm and garden produce, wood, stone, etc., are large wagons with
wheels six to seven feet in diameter. These wagons are more easily
hauled and naturally do less damage to the roads than narrow-tired,
low-wheeled trucks or drays. The horses in Paris, and in the country,
are nearly all plain shod, with no heels or toes to act like a pick
to break up the surface. Sometimes even one sees draught-horses with
great flat, iron shoes extending out beyond the hoof in all
directions.

The question of the speed of the automobile on the roads, in France
and England, as indeed everywhere else, has been the moot point in
all legislation that has been attempted.

The writer thinks the French custom the best. You may legally go at
thirty kilometres an hour, and no more. If you exceed this you do it
at your own risk. If an accident happens it _may_ go hard with you,
but if not, all is well, and you have the freedom of the road in all
that the term implies. In the towns you are often held down to ten,
eight, or even six kilometres an hour, but that is merely a local
regulation, for your benefit as much as for the safety of the public,
for many a French town has unthought-of possibilities of danger in
its crooked streets and unsafe crossings.

Good roads have much to do with the pleasure of automobilism, and
competent control and care of them will do much more. Where a picked
bit of roadway has been chosen for automobile trials astonishing
results have been obtained, as witness the Gordon-Bennett Cup records
of the last six years, where the average speed per hour consistently
increased from thirty-eight miles to nearly fifty-five, and this for
long distances (three hundred and fifty miles or more).

To meet the new traffic conditions the authorities must widen the
roads here and there, remove obstructions at corners, make encircling
boulevards through narrowly laid out towns, and erect warning signs,
like the following, a great deal more numerously than they have as
yet.

They have very good automobile laws in France in spite of their
anomalies. You agree to thirty-seven prescribed articles, and go
throug