been but little improved for a century. As it
was in the days of Addison and Steele, so it was in
those of Henry Carey, who makes one of the
characters in the mock-heroic Chrononhotonthologos
exclaim:

Go, call a coach, and let a coach be call'd;
Let him that calls it be the caller,
And in his calling let him nothing call
But coach! coach! coach! oh, for a coach, ye gods!

Until the last years of the reign of George the
Fourth, the drivers were as antiquated as
their vehicles. They were commonly called
Jarvies— for what reason, perhaps, not even the
learned editor of Notes and Queries can tell;
and were distinguised for the general "beeriness"
or, it might be said, "ginsomeness" of
their faces, and for the drab greatcoats which
they wore, with multifarious capes lapping over
their venerable shoulders like the scales upon
the rhinoceros.

But a change was at hand. People began
to take houses in the suburbs, for the sake
of more elbow-room and a purer atmosphere
than the dense old city afforded; and some
daring speculator, named Bell, whose stables
were in Oxford-street, hit upon the happy idea
of establishing light one-horse vehicles to replace
the heavy old hackney-coaches like those in use
across the channel. The new ventures were
called cabriolets— a French word that did not
suit John Bull, who very speedily abbreviated it
into the monosyllabic "cab." Cabs did not
resemble either the modern hansoms or the
four-wheelers. Originally the driver sat inside
along with his fare— an arrangement which did
not work well, inasmuch as it admitted but one
passenger, and, if the intending passenger
happened to be a lady, prevented her from accepting
a seat in such questionable company. After
a short interval, a place was made for the
driver in a little perch to the right-hand side
of the vehicle, leaving room for two persons
inside. The cab-drivers were younger and
smarter than the old hackney-coachmen; but
it does not appear that their characters were of
the best, if a judgment may be formed from a
caricature of the year 1829. It represents a
barrister, in full legal array of wig and gown,
jumping into one of the new vehicles, and
desiring cabby, who has all the air of being a
returned convict— there were no ticket-of-leave
men in those days— to drive him to the Old
Bailey. "Don't know the place, your honour;
never heard of it," is Cabby's prudent reply—
a strong proof of his reluctance to revisit a
spot which was only too familiar. This kind of
open cab did not long suit the taste of the town,
and was replaced by the covered and more
commodious four-wheelers which we now see in
the streets. The "hansom," so named from
its inventor, and not for its beauty, was of later
date; and, in spite of its clumsy shape and
awkward shutter, that in rainy weather does, or
may, come down upon the head of the incautious
fare inside, with the force and something of the
effect of a guillotine, has been doing duty in the
metropolis for more than a quarter of a century.

Somewhere about 1829 or 1830, and very
shortly after the public had become accustomed
to the convenience of cabs, such as they were
and unfortunately are, Mr. Shillibeer, an
undertaker, bethought him that it might be
pleasanter and more profitable to carry the
living than the dead, and invented and
introduced a new vehicle, which he called
by a Latin name, suggestive of its uses "for
all" the omnibus. This name also was too
long for the popular tongue, and the new hearse,
adapted for the quick and not for the dead, was
designated by its more prououncible last
syllable. Mr. Shillibeer was a public benefactor.
His omnibuses supplied a public want; and for
the comparatively limited traffic of the streets
at a time when London had not attained half
its present population, or spread itself over half
of its actual mileage, answered the public
need sufficiently well. He had, of course,
competitors; and year by year, as population
increased, the numbers of omnibuses plying in
every direction from the centres to the
extremities of London increased also, though not in
the same ratio. Strangely enough, no one ever
thought it worth while to make any considerable
improvements upon Mr. Shillibeer's design. In
other great cities and towns of England and
Scotland— such as Liverpool, Birmingham,
Manchester, Glasgow, and Edinburgh— and
also in Paris, the omnibuses are roomy and
convenient, and if not altogether what such
vehicles should be, are vastly superior to those
of London.

Public vehicles now whizz and dart about
through every main thoroughfare, and,
combined with carts, trucks, waggons, and private
carriages of all kinds, make up a rushing, roaring
tide or whirlpool of traffic unparalleled in
the world. The growing danger of the streets is
told in a few suggestive figures in the report of
the Registrar-General for 1867. During that
year, this useful functionary informs us that the
deaths were registered of one hundred and
sixty-four persons who were killed by horses
or carriages in the streets.

The less serious accidents that occurred
amounted, during the same period, to the large
number of one thousand four hundred and sixty-
seven; the two accounts showing that an
average of one person was killed every second
day, and four persons injured every day
throughout the year, either by the recklessness
of the drivers— public and private— or
by their own incapacity to steer their way
with safety through the streets. Everybody
knows the danger of railway travelling, and
when an accident does occur, how frightful
it is; but figures show conclusively that the
perils of the street are greatly in excess of
those of the rail, and that, while one hundred
and sixty-four pedestrians were killed in one
year in London in a population of three millions
and a half, only one person in ten millions met
his death in a railway accident. It is thus much
safer, on the average, to travel by rail from London
to Inverness, or across the whole continent