TUBE, TRAIN, TRAM, AND CAR.
Tube, Train, Tram, and Car. By Arthur H. Beavan. (G. Routledge and Sons. 6s.)—This account of the growth and present statistics of the new forms of locomotion is an agree- able handbook to the lighter aspects of the subject. It gives a lively directory of the Metropolitan and provincial electrical lines, which includes gossipy descriptions of the scenery and city districts traversed, with references to the adjoining houses of notabilities near the routes, and, e.g., a profound analysis of the word "Piccadilly." The discomforts of the carriages of the ancient type and the upholstery of those of new build are fully expounded. Giving the minute figures of some recent actions at law, Mr. Beavan ridicules the grumblers who complain when their houses are injured and their nerves upset by the vibrations of the " Tube." These parties, he thinks, are like the stupid farmers and gardeners who make war on the mole, being unaware, in their ignorance, that "Mr. Talpa Europaea" is an invaluable surface-drainer, and our only effective policeman against various noxious creatures. Such topics as the arrangements of the overhead, or trolley, system of conducting the current to the vehicles, or the secrets of the alternative underground conduit and surface-contact plans, or Edison's last accumulator, are curtly dismissed in a style which will amuse the expert. Per contra, we can laugh over an allegorical "Journey in the Tubes" taken by one Mrs. Rosamond of the future, whose quasi-comical adventures wind up with an elegant subterraneous slumber in which she discloses " well-fitting black silk worsted stockings on neatly turned ankles, and a charming pair of very small dark tan shoes" 1 The Yuletide reader may enjoy Mr. Beavan's gorgeous vision of the tapestries, velvets, bronzes, carvings a. in Grinling Gibbons, and brio-h-brat of the ocean grey- hounds of the future, with their palatial larders and wine-cellars, the contents of which, and the bills paid for them, are elaborately scheduled. For information regarding ohms and volts, or marine dynamos, the amateur must not look.
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