..What about the transport of newspapers Claude?
..All down to the Tour`de France:
The roots of the Tour de France can be traced to the Dreyfus Affair, a cause célèbre which divided France at the end of the 19th century over the innocence of Alfred Dreyfus, a soldier convicted – though later exonerated – of selling military secrets to the Germans. Opinions became heated and there were demonstrations by both sides. One was what the historian Eugen Weber called "an absurd political shindig" at the Auteuil horse-race course in Paris in 1899. Among those involved was Comte Jules-Albert de Dion, the owner of the De Dion-Bouton car works, who believed Dreyfus was guilty. De Dion served 15 days in jail and was fined 100 francs for his role at Auteuil, which included striking Émile Loubet, the president of France, on the head with a walking stick.
The incident at Auteuil, said Weber, was "tailor-made for the sporting press." The first and the largest daily sports newspaper in France was Le Vélo, which sold 80,000 copies a day. Its editor, Pierre Giffard, thought Dreyfus innocent. He reported the arrest in a way that displeased de Dion, who was so angry that he joined other anti-Dreyfusards such as Adolphe Clément and Edouard Michelin and opened a rival daily sports paper, L'Auto.
The new newspaper appointed Henri Desgrange as editor. He was a prominent cyclist and owner with Victor Goddet of the velodrome at the Parc des Princes. De Dion knew him through his cycling reputation, through the books and cycling articles that he had written, and through press articles he had written for the Clément tyre company.
L'Auto was not the success its backers wanted. Stagnating sales lower than the rival it was intended to surpass led to a crisis meeting on 20 November 1902 on the middle floor of L'Auto's office at 10 rue du faubourg Montmartre in Paris. The last to speak was the most junior there, the chief cycling journalist, a 26-year-old named Géo Lefèvre. Desgrange had poached him from Giffard's paper. Lefèvre suggested a six-day race of the sort popular on the track but all around France. Long-distance cycle races were a popular means to sell more newspapers but nothing of the length that Lefèvre suggested had been attempted. If it succeeded, it would help L'Auto match its rival and perhaps put it out of business. It could, as Desgrange said, "nail Giffard's beak shut." Desgrange and Lefèvre discussed it after lunch. Desgrange was doubtful but the paper's financial director, Victor Goddet, was enthusiastic. He handed Desgrange the keys to the company safe and said: "Take whatever you need." L'Auto announced the first race on 19 January 1903.
getting a bit more than usual philosophical on a Saturday night no doubt aided by Le Cave du Renault and some serious Blues on the stereo I guess I got to think.... and found we need a serious kwelling on what's Important -and what's not..I think you'll all agree my previous postings have all built up to this -ahem,Conceptual continuity :eek:........I know we have some Real thinking-minds on here so my question to you is this one-If you were to name the TWO most important inventions in the history of mankind and our evolution -what would they be??? 
The trouble with English using the Roman alphabet (A-Z) is that there are about 44 sounds in English, but only 26 letters. This makes reading/writing harder, as we have to use combinations of letters to make sounds.
