oing south.

It is difficult to start on a short spin in town, under doctor's orders,
without immediately beginning to wonder why house rents and office rents
should be going up steadily in face of the fact that the population of
New York transacts its business and pursues its pleasures entirely in
the middle of the road. German citizens, as a rule, stop to light their
pipes on a street crossing. When you give them the horn, they are seized
with the belief that you are trying to play the prelude to "Lohengrin,"
and they run up and down in front of the car in extreme agitation. You
frustrate their plans for a beautiful death by rasping your tires
against the curb, together with your nerves. At Seventy-second Street
two women are saying good-bye in the middle of the street. You swerve to
one side and they pursue. You snap your spinal column as you shoot the
car straight about, but when you get there they are there. "Ladies,"
you say, "I am not leading a cotillion. I am an old man out for a bit of
fresh air." Thereupon one calls you a brute and the other discerns from
the colour of your nose that you have been drinking. At Forty-second
Street you catch sight of your doctor. "Have you killed any one?" he
says, after the cheerful manner of doctors. "No," you say, "but if you
will kindly step into the car, I will."

Of the American farmer it may be said that, Mr. Roosevelt to the
contrary notwithstanding, he is not an unimaginative, overworked being.
It can be demonstrated that the contemplative life is on the increase in
the rural districts. Apparently, there is nothing more peaceful, nothing
more restful, nothing more soothing, nothing more permeated with the
spirit of _dolce far niente_, than the American farmer on his wagon in a
narrow road with an auto behind him. The grunt of the horn invariably
stirs in him memories of his aged grandmother, dead these twenty years,
and he falls a wondering whether he was really as kind to her as he
might have been. If the road is just wide enough for one vehicle, he
moves along pensively. If it is wide enough for two vehicles, he throws
his horses straight across the road and enters upon a prolonged
examination of his rear axle. If the road is wide enough for three
vehicles, he drives zigzag. The necessity of conserving our natural
resources would seem to be a meaningless phrase when we consider the
natural resources of an American farmer in front of an automobile.

The law and the c