omnibus occupies in the roadway is to be
measured, not by the width of the body
of the vehicle in which the passengers are
cramped and confined, but by the width
between the tires of the wheels. If the whole of
this amount of space could be made available
for the passengers, they would have all the
elbow-room that the most fastidious could
require, and omnibuses would be as comfortable
as first-class railway carriages. If the wheels
were, as in the present vehicles, placed
externally, the omnibuses would occupy a much
larger portion of the roadway than they now
do, and would thus increase the obstruction in
the public thoroughfare, which it is absolutely
necessary to diminish. If, on the other hand,
the wheels were placed under these enlarged
vehicles, as in railway carriages, it would
require the work of at least three horses to do
the work of one, and the streets would be
blockaded by a new cause, and rendered more
impassable than ever.

This leads to the remedy. What London
requires is, not the abolition of the existing
omnibuses, but a relief to the enormous pressure
on the streets, by the introduction of wider
carriages, not occupying more space than the
omnibuses, and with the wheels inside of the
projecting bulk and under the carriages, as we
see on the railway, and the laying down of
tramways, by means of which one horse might draw
the load that, without the aid of the rail or tram,
would be too much for the strength of three
or four. In one sentence, London must have
tramways such as are established in America,
and which work so satisfactorily to the public
in all the great cities of the United States and
Canada. Under the operation of this system,
one car, not occupying more width of road
than an ordinary omnibus, will be able to
convey thrice the number of passengers,
outside and in, at about half the cost which the
omnibus monopoly demands and receives from
a patient and helpless public, and with a
comfort and convenience which no omnibus, under
any system of management or construction,
unaided by the rail or tram, could hope to afford.
That portion of the public which, had it lived
eighty or even forty years ago, would have
objected to gas, to the "new police," to railways,
or to any other great improvement, objects, as a
matter of course, to street tramways; but, also
as a matter of course, these objections will be
overruled. The tramway will be laid down in
London, as it has been laid down in New York,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, Washington,
Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto, Montreal
Quebec, and in scores and hundreds of populous
towns and cities, and the first people to express
surprise at the convenience, economy, and
utility of the new arrangement will be those
over-zealous or over-interested conservatives of
the status quo in locomotion, who believe, or
affect to believe, that the rail in city streets is a
nuisance. The rails laid down eight years ago
in London were a nuisance, for they
sometimes wrenched off the wheels of carriages
that had as much right to the use of the
roadway as cars. But this nuisance is not
inherent to the reform sought, and a new rail
has been patented, perfectly level with the road,
which will not interfere with the wheels of
ordinary carriages. Cheap fares, commodious
carriages, easy running, diminution of the number
of horses at present employed in the streets,
and a saving of highway rate to every parish
through which the trams shall be laid—
are a little bead-roll of advantages which
the practical people of the metropolis will
not be slow to appreciate, however much the
omnibus interest may object to the good thing.
The old stage-coach proprietors opposed the
rail; the Thames watermen opposed the penny
steam-boats; the old Tories opposed the Reform
Bill of 1832; the old fogies of 1809, alarmed
at possible explosions in the dead of night,
opposed the introduction of gas-lamps in the
streets; the steady old chiefs of the Post Office,
when Rowland Hill promulgated his
revolutionary and, to their minds, wicked idea of a
universal penny post, were dead against him;
but what of that? We have got the railway,
we have got steam-boats, we have got gas, we
have got the penny-post, and we shall have
tramways in all the business thoroughfares and
streets of London that are available for the
purpose.

RED HUGH.

O PLEASANT whisper on the heath
Beside the moorland rill!
O happy meetings 'neath the moon
When all the winds were still!
What kisses when we plighted troth,
What partings by the pine!
I murmur'd Alice in my dreams,
And long'd to call her mine.

Her father was a yeoman,
A kindly man and good,
Who farm'd the acres of his sire,
And dwelt in Ferndale Wood;
And I—I fancy at that time
My work brought little gain;
The chiefest labour of my life
Was loving Alice Rayne.

I wrought for the approval
That shone in her sweet face.
When Whit-tide came, in every game
I held the foremost place;
Mine was the stoutest cudgel
Our Cumbrian yeoman knew,
At wrestling mine the only arm
Could vanquish strong Red Hugh.

The rivalry between us
Was bitter from the first,
An enmity of envy born,
Which even love had nurst;
For in his churlish fashion
He liked her well; and she
Play'd with his fancy, womanlike.
It wrought a pain in me;