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Show in New York last week. The owner ' took the cushions and then 'gave a : drayman five dollars to carry the , twisted, hent and broken thing away, and dump It You can build a new battler.hlp as cheaply as you can raise ar.d repair the Maine. But, say our friends, battleships belong be-long ,o nations aDd antes to Individuals Individ-uals your comparison is not fair. Well, take steam yachts, then. The auto lc the steam yacht of tho middle class. Its productive power Is a hypothesis, and often a barren Ideality. That recreation Is valuable and has Its use we all admit. The auto prevents pre-vents Introspection and gives Us occupants oc-cupants a fine ration of fresh air. I Tho management of one Is a pleasing pleas-ing puzzle, and to feel all this power at your linger tips Is a great stimulus. It breeds alertness of eye and ear, gives much dexterity, accelerates tho heart's action and also, I believe, promotes pro-motes the cause of temperance, since we know that only a perfectly sober man can run one without terrltlc risk. The chauffeur who drinks has already lost his Job. And surely the world needs recreation recrea-tion and it needs fresh air. Also, man Is made to migrate, and the act of moving around Is natural and right. So for, so good. But my plea Is that a vast number of people are buying machines who cannot afford them. To mortgage a home In order to buy an auto Is deliberate de-liberate lunacy. To keep out of debt Is quite as necessary nec-essary ns to travel far and fast, kick up a "jilghty dust and make a bad 6melL The peace that comes from knowing know-ing you can meet your obligations Is something you cannot afford to trade In on tho price of a machine. The burden, of debt and expense may kill you. Go slow! Always keep to the right. If you haven't a machine, you can walk. The open road Is yours. Sit on the bankslde and watch for the red devils to fly past and feel sorry for the occupants, who go so swiftly they soo little or nothing; and who perhaps have stood off the butcher, the baker, the grocer, in order to open i their sccinl cutout and cultivate that stony Mare of non recognition and conscious superiority. The autolst does not love nature his bent is mechanical; his fad is wl.eels--mollon has Infatuated him. You can think of daisies, buttercups, butterflies, trees and birds. Mo thinks of crar.kshafts, carbureters, sparkplugs spark-plugs tind non-sklddlng. antl skldoo oppltani es The law of compensation exists You own the landscape he has only a right of way. Honk, honk! Keep to the right, you lobster I And the argument Is this: The automobile au-tomobile is a non-productive, fixed damnably fixed Investment. The money you put In It Is there to stay. If you can afford it, invest; but if you can't, don't. Punch's advice to the man about to wed can safely be given to the man about to buy a machine. The tremendous non-producthe Investment In-vestment In automobiles will have to be paid for In some way, possibly In explosive sobs. But just what that shape will be no man can say, but the fact Is this country Is pretty nearly benzlne-bu? gy bughouse 1 THE AGE OF THE AUTOMOBILE By ELBERT HUBBARD. "We live," says William Howard Taft." In the Age of tho Automobile." And what the president meant was that we live at a time when there Is n hot elcflro to ?et there quick, regardless regard-less of expense, with a contempt for rleks and a certain indifference to the rights of other people We live in the Ago of the Auto- mobile. The amocnt of money Invested la America In automobiles and automobile automo-bile factories and machinery for making mak-ing automobiles Is over five hundred million dollars. Nearly a million men nre employed in caring for, running, making and selling ' machines " A peculiar thing about an auto Is the brevity of Its life. Woman's lovo does not compare. Machinor, three years old are out of date and practically practic-ally Junk. Machines two years old aro not worth over cne-half what was paid for them Buy a machine and run It around tho block once and It Is a s'cond hnnd proposition It If cost three thousand dollars you have knocked a thousand oil Its value. Second-hand automobiles carry with them a sort of stigma of disgrace, like unto the wearing of second hand clothes, To own an "Ice wagon" is to invito social strlclsm and place your commercial rating in jeopardy. If come one has discarded a thing and yo'i have taken It up, why then, you have taken up the thing which some cue else has discarded In Italy there arc people who pick up cigar stumps as a business. In Naples I have seen a man smoking a cicar fcdlowed by women and children ambulance chasers In cmbrjo, awaiting await-ing tho psychological moment when tho man would throw away the snipe. Then there was a light for the spoils. And no matter how high prices go, white folks who lire under the Stars and Stripes will not cat victuals that have come from some one else's table if they know it. Minced ham and hoof stew at a restaurant are taboo, unless brought out under a French name, or are vouched for by a man who can prove an alibi. And in this automobile business we get tho end of the limit In tho matter of pride. Imagine a younp married man buying a second hand machine for his footsie's use! Wouldn't she shed hot, blinding tears at the thought? What the Johnsons John-sons would say! So with our gasoline there Is always al-ways mixed a deal of prble, and this pride is one of the worst features In the whole auto business. Probably half of the folks who own autos have no moral riht to do so. In the main It Is a luxury, and In the cnco of an owner with an Income of less than five thousand a year It Is an extravagance. Tho value of a thing is In direct ratio to Its productive power. That which pays six per cent clear we call a good investment. But ou must figure on overhead or fixed charges and depreciation. There Is onij one thing In the world as costly to maintain and subject to as raoid deterioration as an auto, and that is a man-of-war. To repair an auto that Is once "smashed up'" Is an Impossibility. I saw a Limousine hit by a street car |