Two ways that people from a high tech civilization might experience low tech, e.g., horse-drawn, transportation:
space travelers visit a low tech planet;
time travelers visit an earlier period.
Everard and Whitcomb travel in a dusty, battered hansom cab, knowing that jet aircraft are not only possible but also in regular use less than a century later. The
Everard begins his first great adventure in the Time Patrol. Something else is going to happen to Whitcomb.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Some people still ride in hansom cabs and similar conveyances out of nostalgia in cities like Boston and New York. I've done that myself! I'm sure that's true of London and other UK cities.
If my memory is correct, I remember either Whitcomb or Everard thinking late Victorian middle class business attire rather heavy and cumbersome.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
However, Everard emphasizes that the hansom in which Whitcomb and he travel is "...not a tourist-trap anachronism, but a working machine, dusty and battered..." (4, p. 24)
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree! I noticed the bit about the hansom cab being battered and dusty, from hard everyday use. And I recall how often Holmes and Watson used hansom cabs in Doyle's stories.
Ad astra! Sean
Hansoms were more expensive that taxis or Uber are today, relative to the average income. A distinctly middle-class conveyance, in a period when the middle classes were only about 20% of the population. In Holmes time, aristocrats were 4-5 inches taller than the average laborer; they looked different, smelled different, moved their bodies differently, and spoke a distinct dialect.
Which is why Wells imagined humanity devolving into Morlocks and Eloi.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: And most people who were poor or only of modest means would get about London by using the Underground? I think what are called "subway" systems in the US were starting to be built in the 1870's.
Paul: But I never thought Wells' Morlocks and Eloi convincing or plausible.
Ad astra! Sean
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