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Directory of Mark Twain's maxims, quotations, and various opinions:

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Everyday throughout America, the Overspeeder runs over somebody and "escapes." That is the way it reads. At present the 'mobile numbers are so small that ordinary eyes cannot read them, upon a swiftly receding machine, at a distance of a hundred feet--a distance which the machine has covered before the spectator can adjust his focus. I think I would amend the law. I would enlarge the numbers, and make them readable at a hundred yards. For overspeeding--first offence--I would enlarge the figures again, and make them readable at three hundred yards--this in place of a fine, and as a warning to pedestrians to climb a tree.
- "Overspeeding," Harper's Weekly, 5 Nov. 1905 (from a letter to the editor dated 18 Oct. 1905)

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