OCR Text |
Show DEATH AND DISASTER ATTEND PARIS-MADRID AUTOMOBILE RACE jj - Death and disaster attended the automobile race from Paris to Madrid, May 25, and it was abandoned. Premier Combes issued an order forbidding the cortinuance of the contest con-test on French territory and the Spanish Span-ish government forbade the racers to cross the frontier. The first stage of the race, from Versailles to Bordeaux, 313 miles, csst the lives of at least eight persons, and the injury of several others. Two soldiers, two men, one woman, and a child were hilled on the read. Ono chauffeur was burned to death be-eath be-eath the wreckage of his machine and and another was killed outright. Marcel Renault, winner of the Paris-Vienna race last year, in turning turn-ing from the track collided with a tree and was fearfully injured. Lorraine Barrows, one of the best known automobilists of France', was fatally injured. Messrs. Porter and Stead were seriously seri-ously hurt by the wreckage of their machines and fears for the recovery of both are entertained. There were many other casualties of a less serious nature. A woman was , killed near A'oils while trying to cross the road ahead of one of the racing machines, , The Contest Abandoned. The second stretch of the Paris-Madrid Paris-Madrid automobile race was not . started, owing to the interdiction of I the French and Spanish governments, j Joseph Pennell, the artist and i writer, sent a graphic description of ' the first stage " of the Paris-Madrid ; automobile race to the London Daily Chronicle from Chartres. After describing des-cribing the arsemblii g of the crowds and how, finally, the racers were seen coming from the tcp of a hill, he continued: con-tinued: "As the cars fell there is no other word for it down the slopes and approached ap-proached the rarrow bridge, jumped j with a bovtnd across and flew with a debris and he burned to death before assistance ccul;'. reach him. Near Arveyres, Mr. Stead and another an-other competitor collided, and both, men, with their machirists, seriously ;rju:ed. They had hean racirg wheel to wheel, ai d both machines went into the ditch together. Mr. Stead was car.jvht urder his machine, while his scream up the rise beyond, one could see by the twitch of the wheels how agonizing was the strain on the driver, driv-er, forced to make his way through the endless, uncontrollable crowds which littered the road from Paris to Bordeaux. "Much as one may esteem the broad-minded broad-minded views of the French government govern-ment in encouraging the . motor industry, in-dustry, the government's neglect to protect the course was criminal and rothing else. Though on the stretch of eight kilometres between Chartres and the first village there were from 5,000 to 10,000 people and 500 to 1,000 cars, no attempt was made to control the crowds, mostly made up of peasants peas-ants and people from Paris who knew rothing about automobiles. ' The horse-drawn traffic was stopped stop-ped during the race,' but the fools on bicycles and the imbeciles on motors careened about and drew up anywhere any-where all over the road, and only escaped es-caped killing themselves and the racirg rac-irg men by the sheer dumb tuck which is said to protect drunken men, children and fools. Yet people wonder won-der why accidents happen. 1 J IsfrvrcrZ 2?ek4ozt: 7tzu.i.'f sfss-T, svz r ssf Jf.r& so- jY.j J9c& " chauffeur was hurled to a distance of thirty feet and had his head and body badly cut. Mr. Stead was conscious when he was picked up, but complained complain-ed of suffering great pain. He was conveyed to the nearest farm. Near Angouleme a machine was j overturned and its two occupants seri- ' The deadly results of the race caused caus-ed a more painful impression in France. It is feared tnat motor racing " is a thing of the past for a long time to come. One newspaper, La Fran-caise, Fran-caise, called the race "the Paris-Madrid Paris-Madrid massacre." Marcel Renault was injured at Coupe, twenty-one miles from Poic-tiers. Poic-tiers. He was compelled to turn his machine abruptly into a ditch iu order i to avoid a locked level crossing. In j so doing he collided with a tree. Re- j r.auit.was thrown to the ground with great force and was urconscious when picked up and carried to a nearby farmhouse. His chauffeur was so ssericusly injured that tis life is des- j paired of. Louis Renault, Marcel's brother, v.as deeply affected by the tews and at once started back to his j brother's assistance. Orders were j given to withdraw all .the Renault ; cars from the race. j Lorraine Barrcws met with his disaster dis-aster r.ear Libourne, seventeen miles frcm Bordeaux, at 1:45 Sunday afternoon. after-noon. It appears that Mr. Barrows had tried to avoid a dog which was crossing the track, and his monster car, No. 5 in the race, struck a tree with terrific force. His chauffeur was killed outright. Earrows himself was picked up unconscious but still breathing, breath-ing, acd was taken to a hospital, where his cordition was declared to be critical. His car was dashed to pieces. Two miles from Angouleme a car driven at a high rate of speed by M. Tourand swerved from the roadway and dashed into a group of spectators. It was here that the greatest loss of life occurred. The car was wrecked, and two soldiers, a child, and M. Tou-rand's Tou-rand's machinist were killed. M. Tourand Tou-rand himself was seriously hurt. Another terrible accident occurred near Bonneval, nineteen miles- from Chartres, where an automobilist, L. Porter, met a shocking death. His car was overturned while crossing the Paris-Tours railroad track. The broken gasoline reservoir spread its contents over the demolished car and the wreckage instantly caught fire. Mr. Porter was pinned beneath the ous'.y hurt. Two spectators were killed. "The conduct of the military authorities au-thorities was incredible. From Chartres Char-tres to the narrow bridge at the foot of the hill the road was kept by a regiment of infantry and some gendarmes, gend-armes, and though pedestrians were not permitted to cross the bridge, but had to pass through the stream below, thus making a jam at both ends of the bridge, ordinary motor cars and motor cycles were allowed free passage, of which they took such advantage that one of the racing cars was stopped , dead in order that a person on an ordinary or-dinary car might crawl over. "As for the motor cycles in the race, they were simply used near Chartres as pacing machines by any stray scorcher who wanted to take them on. Measures for preserving the safety of the public was either nonexistent non-existent or of the most ridiculous character." Mr. Pennell then describes the scenes at the headquarters at Chartres, Char-tres, and the appearance and often hysterical demeanor of the drivers who were cut 'out of the race, and says : "Further up the street was another car with a huge gash in its tire of one wheel, the other tire down, and the whole twisted and bent, in the hands of a dozen workmen. Walking away therefrom was a being with part of a cap over one ear and part of a pair of goggles over the other, plastered plas-tered with mud and oil, in rags and tatters of what had once been a suit of clothes. It opened its mouth and said in a voice choked with tears, and in the American language: 'I do not mind breaking down again, but it makes me so very angry.' It was Mr. Vanderbilt, and he had been in a ditch." The Gordon Bennett Cup Race. The Dublin Gazette contains the regulations for the auto race for the James Gordon Bennett cup, which is to take place in Ireland July 2. The whole course will be closed from 6 o'clock in the morning until the ace is finished, and the other regulations reduce the possibility of accidents to a minimum. It is believed the Irish administration is considering still further fur-ther precautions to insure the safety of the public. |