of Europe, than to attempt to cross Cheapside
or Oxford-street, unless you are young and strong,
and have all your wits about you. The Registrar-
General, in view of this fact, suggests, and all
whose business or ill fate compels them to be
much in London will agree with him, that a
all the more important crossings— such, for
instance, as at the junction of Regent-street
and Oxford-street, or at the point where
Farringdon-street and Bridge-street, Blackfriars,
meet Fleet-street and Ludgate-hill, and many
other crossings as crowded and as dangerous
— light bridges for foot-passengers should be
thrown across, or subways, such as go under railway
stations, should be constructed; and doubt
less, when a few more hundred children, infirm
persons, and aged men and women shall have
been killed, with perhaps a bishop, a member
of parliament, or a highly respectable millionnaire
among the number, the bridges and the
subways will be provided. Bridges or no
bridges, the cataract of horses and vehicles in
the metropolitan streets will continue to
increase in volume and force as population
augments; and something will have to be done,
either to divert, to regulate, or to economise
it, if this great city is to remain habitable any
longer for that rather large and very intelligent
class of people, workers or non-workers, who
value their health, their comfort, or their
safety.

When railways were first established, their
termini were generally placed at considerable
distances from the metropolitan centre. The
London and North-Western came nearest at
Euston-square, where it still has its
headquarters; the South-Eastern stopped at the
Surrey side of London-bridge; the South-
Western, still more modest, stopped at
Vauxhall. But the introduction of railways right
into the city of later years, though it must
have diminished a certain amount of cab and
omnibus traffic, does not seem to the eye of
any ordinary observer to have sensibly
disencumbered the streets. Even the greatest boon of
all the means of locomotion yet accorded to the
peripatetic and travelling public of London,
the Metropolitan or Underground Railway,
which carries its millions of passengers per
annum, does not seem to have rendered
unnecessary the employment of a single cab or
omnibus that previously plied for hire in our
busy streets. Open out whatever mode of
relief we may, the great thoroughfares remain
as crowded as ever. London is in this respect
like Niagara: the torrent roars as furiously as
before, though a hundred mills and factories,
each of which requires and takes away a certain
amount of water-power, may be established on
either side. The main stream is inexhaustible,
and can only be diverted in rills and driblets,
that create no sensible diminution of the mighty
current.

London locomotion in our day presents itself
under a twofold aspect to the consideration of
the daily increasing inhabitants of this nation
within a nation— this people of three and a
half millions, almost double in number to the
whole population of the immense continent of
Australia, greater also than the whole population
of Scotland, though cooped up in a space about
the extent of the Isle of Wight. The first
point that requires consideration in a time
when people must ride in public vehicles is the
comfort, convenience, and economy of the
carriages, small or great, which are licensed to
convey them from place to place; the second is
the safety of the multitudinous army of pedestrians
who traverse, on their business or pleasure,
such comparatively short distances as do
not make riding compulsory upon the feeble
or the hurried. The first question leads to an
examination of the existing cabs and
omnibuses, and whether the accommodation they
offer, and the rates at which they supply it, are
of a kind to meet the public requirements; and
the second leads to the inquiry whether, under
a better system of management, the streets
could not be relieved of at least one-half of the
number of horses and of vehicles that now
almost blockade them, without diminishing the
amount of accommodation afforded to the
public.

On the first point there is little to be said
that needs saying. Our cabs are a disgrace to
a civilised city, but might easily be improved
under better municipal regulations, and
perhaps by removing some of the restrictions
that now fetter this branch of trade, and
permitting the introduction of superior vehicles
at such rates of fare as the proprietors chose
to demand and the public would be content
to pay. But bad as are the cabs, the
omnibuses are ten times worse. Ill-constructed,
ill-ventilated, dirty, close, narrow, unfit when
crowded (as they usually are) for a decent
woman either to press into or out of, with an
amount of seat-room per individual inconsistent
with the deference due to the modesty of the
one sex or the convenience of the other, the
omnibuses of London are models of "what to
avoid." A few years ago, when the proprietors
of the various lines united, and formed what is
known as the London General Omnibus
Company (Limited), the public was promised that
the quasi-monopoly they established would
conduce to the general interest, inasmuch as a rich
and powerful company would be in a position
to provide better vehicles and charge lower
fares than the poor proprietor of one or
perhaps two carriages. But all these
promises came to nothing. No improvement worth
record has been made, and fares, instead of
being lessened, have been raised. But while
the omnibus proprietors have it in their power
to construct their vehicles on a better principle
as regards ventilation, to bestow more attention
upon cleanliness, they are not able to provide
carriages of a greater width than those they now
employ, so as to allow ample room to every
passenger and a clear space down the middle, unless
upon conditions which would tend to encumber
the streets still more fearfully than they are
encumbered at present. The space which an