Chapter V: The Car Arrives

On reaching London we found that the freight steamer on which the car had been shipped had not yet arrived. As Ruth was most anxious to see her sister, who lives in Yorkshire, she was persuaded to proceed by train and leave me to bring on the car alone. This was, indeed, a happy solution of a problem which had caused me some anxiety. I was quite ready to risk one valuable life, but did not care to risk two!

The next day I received word that the _Georgic_ had arrived at the Tilbury docks, and that the car was being held "at the risk of the owner." I had been advised to take a chauffeur with me and not to attempt to drive the car into London myself, which advice I followed.

When we arrived at Tilbury, which is about twenty-five miles from London, we found the car, still in its crate, standing on the docks. There were few formalities to be complied with, and a carpenter was soon at work opening the case.

While waiting I fell into conversation with the third officer, who had charge of the unloading of the vessel, and expressed my admiration of the docks, and said I wished we had some equal to them in New York. He admitted they were a fine bit of work, but said that the possibilities of our port were the greatest in the world. "I have often wished," he added, "that I might see that port fifty years hence. You see, it is the only great city in the world that is directly on the sea, and therefore has much the same advantage now that Venice had of old. The East River, being as it were a canal, connecting New York Bay with Long Island Sound, and the Hudson being an estuary of the sea, the largest ships can dock almost in the heart of the city, discharge cargo, then load again and pass out at any tide. Nowhere else is such a thing possible."

I said I was thinking rather of the cleanliness and "smartness" of the docks than of their convenience.

"I grant you," he said, "that we beat you there. But already you are replacing your old wooden docks with concrete, which will last as long as stone. The reason your docks are not so clean as ours is because of the high price of unskilled labor with you. If we had to pay twelve shillings a day to the man who sweeps and tidies up, we should have to have the work done twice a week as you do."

"Well," said I, "that means that we shall never be able to have docks and streets as clean as yours."

"If it did," he replied, "there are better things than neatness. Neatness may imply poverty on the part of labor, and poverty leads to drink and so to the breeding of more poverty."

"Still," I urged, "though neatness may imply poverty, slovenliness shows a lack of self-respect. A city that cannot keep its front door-step clean is a bad neighbor."

He laughed at this homely illustration but said the solution of the problem must be found in another way. "It is all very well to talk of the 'dignity' of labor, but where is the dignity in sweeping up dung?--perhaps taking up the last of it in one's hands. No man does it willingly, he is driven to it by necessity."

I quoted:

"Are these things necessities?
Then let us meet them like necessities."

"You may be surprised to learn that a sailor knows his Shakespeare, but I read a play every voyage, and so I recognize that great speech of the king. But the question is are these things necessities? I say no. Machinery must be, and I believe will be, invented to do the work which no self-respecting man ought to be asked to do habitually. Some day we shall have great vacuum cleaners to do such work, and then you will have your docks and streets as clean as ours, and at half the price."

I should like to have had more talk with this intelligent young officer, but the car was now ready, so the chauffeur and I took our places on the front seat.

At that moment a wretched specimen of the casual laborer appeared, and, touching his greasy cap, inquired: "Shall I wind her up, Guv'ner?" I nodded and he stooped down to find the handle. Then he looked up with a grin, remarking: "You 'ave fergot the 'andle, sir!" Meanwhile I had touched the self-starter; the little electric engine had begun to hum, there was a click and the car glided away. I tossed the poor wretch a shilling, but he was too astonished to say "Thank you." He simply exclaimed, in a dazed way, "Well, I'm damned!" There was a cheer from the bystanders, and we slipped through the gate and turned toward London.

The chauffeur took the wheel, and of course the talk turned upon cars. He admitted that the American cars were "smart" and wonderfully cheap, but declared that they could not compare with English cars in durability. "They tell me that at the end of a year you American gentlemen turn in your cars, at a great loss, and get a new one in exchange. But an English car will be as good after five years as this will be at the end of one. So, I do not see there is much saved."

I said we found it cheaper to scrap an old machine than to run up a bill for repairs.

He replied: "That may be, because wages are so high, but in the long run the American car is the more expensive."

"But you must remember," I replied, "that every year there are improvements."

But he shrewdly remarked: "There are changes; I do not know that they are always improvements."

It was fascinating to watch this skilful driver thread his way through the traffic; so well did he manage that in a much shorter time than I had supposed would be possible, we reached the garage, in a street not far from Leicester Square.

There were things enough still to do to occupy the rest of the day--the grease, with which the brass work had been smeared to protect it _en route_, removed, the car cleaned and polished, and the batteries filled with distilled water, which could be obtained only from a "chemist," and all valves and bolts tested. Then there were last purchases to be made, to insure comfort in a climate in which, even in summer, the American shivers like a Mexican hairless dog! So it was not till the next afternoon that, the chauffeur still driving, we started on our great adventure.