[A. first_prize of two guineas and a second pried of one guinea were offered for not more than twelve lines of verse on Any Aspect of the new Speed Limit}]

And they say it is only political questions that generate heat; why, in England one ‘might surely say it is almost anything but. 

For a parallel to the quantity of irrelevant and unseemly combustiousness produced by Mr. Hore-Belisha and his recent attempts to tackle the severely technical problems of road safety what isssue of the past would one have to go back to—Welsh Disestablishment, the dreadful time when Mr. Lloyd George first asked employers’ to lick their servants’ insurance cards, or perhaps, farther still, to that famous pother between “big-endians” and “little endians over the proper way of eating eggs! Our competitors mostly reflected this curious intensity of feeling. We asked for an “aspect” of the speed question, and an “aspect” certainly was what we usually got - a rather astigmatic aspect, in which the genial or scowling image of Mr. Hore-Belisha occupied most of the space in front of the camera.

Brake, brake, brake,

‘On this fine smooth road, O man!

And I would that my tongue could’ utter

‘My thoughts on this speeding ban,

remarked a Leicester writer before going on to utter a few. 

Or, as another reader had it :

Why should we boys of ‘bulldog breeds,

The’ backbone of the British nation,

Be forced to crawl like centipedes,

‘By pettifogging regulation?

Why, indeed, unless it is in the hope that by so doing some more of the existing centipedes may preserve Intact their existing backbones?

Then there were the efforts of the ‘opposite school, which also arrived in equally great (if not greater) numbers. ‘These were generally pointed to convey the unambiguous opinion that the average motorist belonged to a sub-human species, that he was something

akin to the lowly forms of life seen in pond-water under a microscope. Altogether we soon began to hope for an entry which was less of an “aspect” and more of a summary. Even an

essay in Emersonan transcendentalism was welcome :

I  am the diver and the driven,

The speedhog and his hope of Heaven,

I am the horn the hiker fears,

I am the dust that fills his ears,

I am the child I skidded round,

I am the mess the doctors found,

The patient and the patient’s nurse,

I am the pram, I am the hearse.

However, quite a number of reasonable “aspects” were agreeably commented upon. A Manchester competitor, aided by Leigh Hunt, submitted a charming verse of thankfulness for one manner in which some of the mighty have been brought low:

Mr. Belisha may his tribe increase—

Brings me at last, by law. Domestic peace.

For, in those speedier days of old,

As through the town we humbly bowled,

In our small car (whose age decreed

Some thirty miles its utmost speed),

It much annoyed my wife to find

Impatient speedsters, Just behind,

Hoot with contempt, then glare aside

As they flashed past in gleaming pride…

Smith’s “Rolls,” Brown’s “Daimler,” Robinson’s “M.G.”

Curb their impatience now, and follow me.

Further reasons for satisfaction were expressed in an entry from London, S.W., which would have been better still if it had not sounded more than a little far-fetched :

He thought he'd buy a motor-car,

But riding with a friend,

He noticed how the vehicles

Went slowly, end on end,

While flocks of Jolly cyclists

Went whizzing gaily past-

They hadn't any terror of

‘The gong’s unwelcome blast,

He put his money in the bank,

 And went a mount to seek,

Now he’s riding a bicycle,

 At one-and-six a week!

Unless they were all championship athletes, flocks of jolly eyelists” who contrived to average thirty miles an hour might be rather less jolly by the time they had finished a day’s run.

From York came a wish that the Archbeacon of Roads would extend his inhibitory efforts to" other "useful spheres:

H.-B, you’ve taken wisdom’s course,

Now we would like you to enforce

A speed limit on getting rich

By landing others in the ditch-

A speed-limit upon invention

Intensifying world dissension,

With danger signals gleaming red on

The darkening way to armageddon!

Speed-limits on each fresh device

That bids the workless pay the price-

Lastly , ot curb, not clip, their wings,

A speed-limit on Bright Young Things!

We can conclude this review with

slightly different expression of opinion:

 IRONY.

(An extract from the future.)

Mighty Hore-Belisha’s dead

(He needed no thermometer).

He drove right over Beachy Head.