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434

MR. HANCOCK'S STEAM-CARRIAGE AUTOMATON,” AND STATEMENT OF HIS LATE TRAFFIC BETWEEN THE BANK AND PADDINGTON.

On our front page we present our readers with an engraving of the "Automaton," the last steam-carriage built by Mr. Hancock. One or other of this gentleman's carriages have been travelling, without intermission, since the 11th of May last. That steam-locomotion on common roads is both practicable and safe to the passengers and the public, he has proved; it now remains for him to show (which it will be seen by the following letter, containing a statement of his late performances, he promises shortly to do), that his travelling has been economical, so as to return a fair profit to any capitalist who may embark his money in a speculation of the kind.

Mr. Hancock is now the only engineer with a steam-carriage on any road.

Sir

Charles Dance, Colonel Maceroni, Dr. Church, Messrs. Ogle, Summers, Squire, Russel, Redmund, Heaton, Maudsley, Frazer, and a host of others-where are they? Echo answers-"Where !" Strange to say, however, we see steam-carriage companies advertised, whose engineers have either never yet built a carriage, or whose carriages when built have never stirred out of the factory yard!

Sir, Tuesday evening, the 20th inst., completed twenty weeks' continued running on the Stratford, Islington, and Paddington roads, during this year, and I beg to hand you as faithful an account - as I can of the performances of my carriages.

Since the last notice in your Magazine, a new carriage, the "Automaton," has been brought upon the road, the only difference between which and those preceding it is, that the engines are of greater power (having cylinders of 12 inches diameter, whilst those of the others are of 9 inches), and the carriage altogether of larger dimensions than the others, it hav ing seats for 22, whilst they are only calculated for 14 passengers. It is an open carriage ke the "Infant;" and although only calculated for the accommodation of 22 passengers, it has carried 30 at one time, and would then have surplus power to draw an omnibus or other carriage containing 18 more passengers,

without any material diminution of speed; its general rate of travelling is from 12 to 15 miles per hour. On one occasion it performed (when put upon the top of its speed, and loaded with 20 full-grown persons) a mile on the Bowroad, at the rate of 21 miles per hour.

The first time the "Automaton" was

brought upon the road (the latter end of July) it conveyed a party to Romford, and back, at the rate of 10 to 12 miles per hour, without the least interruption or deviation in its working, although it was the first, or as I may call it, the day of proving; nor has it required any repairs

whatever to this time.

After this digression in describing the "Automaton," I will return to the actual work done on the public roads and streets of the metropolis during the last twenty weeks, or five months, in as concise a manner as I can :

Supposing the carriage had always been full, the passengers carried would have been.... Average time a carriage has run

4.200

12,761

525

143

44

20,420

each day-5 hours, 17% minutes, An exact account of the number of times that the carriages have gone through the City in their journeys has not been kept, but I should suppose that it must be more than 200. For the last five weeks a carriage has been at the Bank twice a day, viz. between the hours of 2 and 3 and 5 and 6 in the afternoon.

It was on one of the morning trips from Stratford to the Bank, through the City, that the steamer became entangled with a waggon at Aldgate; and which, I am happy to say, is the only accident worth recording. The shafts of the waggon were swung by the contact against the projecting front of a shop; the damage done was trifling, and occasioned by the wheels of the steam-carriage having got into the iron gutter, and out of which it is not an easy thing to gain the fair surface of the street with any ordinary carriage in so confined a situation as that part of Aldgate in which the accident happened; and it should be observed, that this occurred in making way for another carriage passing at the time.

I will now give you an account of all other accidents (which have all happened to the damage of the steamers them

selves) viz. the chain pulley of the "Enterprise" once broke on the axletree; the same occurred once to the "Infant," which were permanently and immediately replaced by castings from the same pattern, with a greater thickness of metal, and which have since stood well.

The severe test afforded by the state of the City Road and onward to Paddington, caused these failures; for the pulleys had stood well on other roads, for many miles.

Another accident was a hind-wheel of the "Erin" coming off in the New Street, near the Bank, on which occasion the carriage sunk only about eight or nine inches, in consequence of the frame-work of the machinery taking the ground; and so little was the coach thrown out of the level, that the inside passengers were surprised when informed that the wheel was off. The concluding accident was by the steerage chain of the "Infant" being too slight, and breaking at Islington, when the carriage turning short round, with one of the fore wheels against the curb, the wheel was broken. This wheel was an old cne, of much slighter construction than I now make them.

In the early part of the five months' running, the close-bodied carriages, "Erin" and "Enterprise" were about equally employed-in the latter part, and to the present time, in consequence of the fine weather, the open carriages "Infant" and Automaton" have been running.

I have occasionally examined the boilers and engines of all the carriages, and found that the engines have in most parts actually improved, whilst the boilers and fire-places have suffered a deterioration, less than could have been expected, from the use they have undergone.

It may be remarked, that both boilers and machinery are suspendel on wellacting springs, and which accounts for the state of all the parts being so well preserved. Some of the boilers have been in use for two or three years.

There have been consumed in the before-mentioned traffic, 55 chaldrons of coke, which is equal to 76 miles per chaldron, or about 21d. per mile for fuel; but this on long journeys would be much reduced by the application of the moveable fire place, patented by me about

435 diture of coke in these short journeys is in lowering and again raising the fire.

I cannot conclude without noticing with gratitude the general civility and attention which I have met with, and my pleasure in discovering that the antipathies which existed in the earlier part of my career are gradually subsiding, and that, in fact, never now meet with incivility excepting with a few carters. or draymen, who consider the introduction of steam-carriages as an infringement upon the old-established use of horse-flesh.

Years of practice have now put all doubts of the economy, safety, and superiority of steam travelling on common roads at rest, when compared with horse travelling; and I have now in preparation calculations founded upon actual practice, which when published will prove that steam-locomotion on common roads is not unworthy of the attention of the capitalist, though the reverse has been disseminated rather widely of late by parties who do not desire that this branch of improvement should prosper against the interests of themselves.

After twelve years of incessant labour in steam locomotion,

Your obedient servant,
WALTER HANCOCK.

Stratford, Sept. 22, 1836.

FIRES AND LONDON FIRE-ENGINES.

Sir-Nothing that has appeared in your pages for a long time has surprised me so much as the article copied from the Spectator into your last Saturday's Number.

Such a mass of falsehoods and blunders are not often met with in the limited space occupied by the article in question, the writer of which evidently knows just as much about fires and fire-engines as the fire-engines know about him. At the outset he asserts, in the boldest manner possible, that "our engines do not put ont fires, but only keep them from spreading with the aid of party-walls; where these are wanting, the only preventive means is to isolate the flames by pulling down adjoining buildings!"

don and its suburbs last year, 440 were not only prevented from spreading by the aid of party walls"—but were actually put out by the engines. per via bloca

C

With respect to what the Spectator terms the absurdly inadequate power of our fire-engines, may just state, that the engines of the London Fire Establishment deliver a stream of water three quarters of an inch in diameter. In a recent trial, one of these absurdly inadequate engines" threw a jet of water on to the top of the tower of St. Mary Aldermary's Church, in Bow-lane, which is upwards of 120 feet high. Very few fires can live under the effect of a dozen such jets playing at once."

The Spectator speaks of " Braithwaite's floating-engine on the Thames" throwing a stream of water about the bigness of one's arm."The writer has here, as you justly observe, as well as in many other parts of his communication, laboured under a great mistake. In the first place, Mr. Braithwaite never had any floatingengine on the river; secondly, neither he nor any other party ever made an engine capable of throwing a stream" about the bigness of one's arm!" But then, says this extraordinary writer, "it is only available in cases of fire near the river-side, and then not at low waterwhich was the cause of its not rendering such good service at the fire in question" -that is, the late fire at London Bridge; a river-side fire at the time of high water! Bravo! The writer could have been no spectator there, I guess.

Without stopping to notice the absurd remarks about the waste of water, or the newly-suggested, old-fashioned, and inconvenient mode of supplying water to the engines, which is gravely proposed to supply an amazing "increase of propelling force"I pass on to the grand idea of a stream of water not less than SIX INCHES DIAMETER. This is truly magnificent; but where is a supply of this element to be obtained equal to so splendida conception? Oh from the Thames and the engines are to be worked? By electro-magnetism, of course! Of the efficiency of such a stream there can be no doubt; but as it will take some time preparing, in the interim locomotive-cisterns are to be employed, which shall in due order leap on to the burning buildings, and at once settle all doubts about putting out the fire. But should

of firemen proportionably increased, and the water companies compelled to furnish a 'quantity of water adequate to supply such engines; sooner said than done, I reckon.ab

The Quixotic style and manner of the Spectator, after all, is so provokingly droll, that it is exceedingly difficult to write seriously upon any of the subjects he has treated of, and I cannot help thinking he had only just laid down Gulliver's Travels, when he commenced the article before usarons ergon

It is an undoubted fact, that all fi fires have small beginnings, and that, at some period of their career they may be extinguished with very slender means, but in proportion to the time they rage unchecked, and the nature of the materials within their reach, the extinguishing of them becomes every minute more difficult; in fact, fires may, and sometimes do, attain, so great a head, as to be wholly unextinguishable. This was most assuredly the case at the late calamitous fire at London Bridge, so far as larger warehouses were concerned the fee having gained so great an ascendancy there before the engines were supplied with water, as to defy all earthly power to extinguish them. Nor was the attempt to do so long persisted in, the firemen's power was far more usefully employed in combating the fire in the surrounding buildings in which it had made more partial progress. In the houses of Messrs. Grant and Co., Burford, Pocock, Edging