The Shanghai Municipal Councit has approved further measures for the mitigation of the motor-horn nuisance, Exhaustive investigation of the technical issues involved has been followed by careful consideration within the Council. The result is that cars are limited: to a maximum of two horns, multiple tone horns are to be prohibited, short, sharp signals are to be exclusively adopted by drivers desiring to make their presence known end, except in emergency, the use of a horn in a stationary car is to be avoided. These are eminently. sensible provisions and it to be hoped that they will work Jout satisfactorily for the public, for the motorist and for the police whom will rest the duty of enforcing the new rules, Generally it would seem that the nuisance chiefly arises from the inconsiderate attitude of the driver and is not so much the reduct of any particularly fiendish ingenuity on the part of the manufacturer of motor-car equipment, This apparently is the Council's view in refusing to make the use of bulb horns compulsory, apart from the fact that that type of horn is out of date. At the same time strenuous retance would probably be offered to extensive development of cacophonous fancy in providing cars with stentorian signals, The normal pattern horn without the multiple tone should be adequate. If the craze for novelty should follow feminine fash-fon and throw the minds of manufacturers back to some distant age, there might be a movement to ft cars with cymbals, trumpets or shawmns, 'The Council' would no doubt face the crisis firmly and issue peremptory orders for shawms to be banned, if as @ mulsance at least as an unjustifiable encroachment on. th Preserves of the Municipal Orchestra, The beneficial results of the Coun-c's action in mitigation of the motor-horn nuisance will be judged when experience can afford a reliable guide. That some regulation was necessary thas been evident from the pained expressions of opinion in the press and elsewhere for some time, Mr. DrAuxion de Rufté has some pointed observations of his own on that subject and he is entitled, on behalf of his association, to claim credit for having assisted the Council to come to a decision, although, as he explains, it does not go as far he would like, The problem has been complicated by idiosyncrasies which would not readily be found in other cities. Cases have been known where motor cars in pursuit of the laudable vbjeet of keep ing the world aware of their presence, are fitted with no less than fourteen horns of varying degrees of efficiency. The sound of a car equipped with fourteen horns would be delightful to hunters of the Snark. They cannot honestly be described as essential to the peace of mind of Shanghai. It will be interesting to know what will be the attitude of such insatiable noise-mongers toward the restrictions now proposed. The nervous plight a car condemned to find its way about the streets of this city with not more than two horns, when it has been accustomed to a battery of fourteen arouses the acute sympathy of the humanitarian. Perhaps the Council will take' a leaf' out of opium-reformer's book and permit such addicts "to arrive. ata state Jof quietude by progressive stages under special expert treatment, The innocent glee of the car on finding, in due course, that it can exist with only ten horns will. be worth study and when the blissful acceptance of the meagre allowance of {wo ig reached the patient will obviously be fit to minister to the requirements of any deaf and dumb garage.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.