The Fashionable Frankenstein

According to an article in the “Practitioner” by Professor Millias Culpin, of the London School of Tropical Medicine, motor cars are mastering men.

Oh, the automobile or motor car
Was an innocent thing of yore
When it didn’t proceed at incredible speed—
Say, thirty an hour, or more.
But the automobile of these modern days
Is a demon, a devil, a djinn,
That was palpably sent as a punishment
For man’s original sin.
It owns his body, enslaves his soul;
It has gobbled the civilised nations whole.

Up and down the motors rush
As their “owners” think they plan,
But it’s quite an absurd and ridiculous word,
Since the motor owns the man.
And the agonised look in their staring eyes
Tells clearly what they are:
Each a fallible mortal, none too wise,
Who falters and falls and unwittingly buys
A monster, because of a salesman’s lies,
We are slaves of the motor car—
We are—
The dominant motor car.

In pedestrian days we went our ways
At a gait that was safe and sane.
But speed was our star; so we got us a car.
And how much time do we gain?
May we leisurely sit and gossip a bit,
Or think without flurry or fuss?
Nay, it’s woe and worry and hustle and hurry
Since ever we bought a bus.
And the motor gloats in his loathsome lair;
For he knows that he owns us, hide and hair.

Then up and down the motors whizz,
However, wherever they list.
They rocket and reel, and the man at the wheel
Is a brooding pessimist.
And he might sit at ease on a sunlit lawn;
But his imp whirls him afar,
And his teeth are clenched and his face is drawn
And his body is tense, his soul in pawn.
We are headed for mad pandemonium’s dawn
In the charge of a motor car—
We are—
Demoniac motor car.