day; glass coaches earned a great harvest.
The railway companies also devised a plan of
great convenience to their passengers. The
luggage was piled in districts, placed on their
large vans, and delivered in circuits; they also
telegraphed to the chief places on the lines, and
in a few hours preparations were made for bringing
up some hundreds of flys, bath coaches,
cars, and other vehicles, from Dover, Bath,
Bristol, Cheltenham, Birmingham, and Liverpool.
This very annoying trick, when the first
burst of indignation was over, seemed to be
considered on both sides as a good joke, and
was borne with much good humour.
Occasionally a few drunken cabmen annoyed a
nonjuring brother, and the magistrates had some
additional business. The strike continued three
days, during which the streets presented an
unusual aspect of quiet and good order. But,
by that time, numerous unlicensed vehicles—
an irregularity which the authorities refused to
notice—supplied the public necessities; the
public discovered that they could walk or stay
at home without much inconvenience; and the
cab-owners found that they were losing two
thousand pounds a day, with no definite object,
in view. The recusants, therefore, reappeared,
and all went on as before."

Now, is there any real necessity for all this
microscopic legislation? Is there a good reason
to assign why cabs and such-like vehicles
should be treated in this exceptional way?
The law does not attempt to decide whether
ten or twelve shillings is a proper price for a
hat, forty pounds or fifty pounds a proper rent
for a house, fourteen pounds or sixteen pounds
the proper wages for our servant, Mary Jane,
threepence or fourpence the proper price
for the Times, a halfpenny or a penny the
proper price for a hot-cross bun, one-a-penny
or two-a-penny for dumpling apples,
threehalfpence or twopence for a pint of beer. Nay,
even in omnibus travelling the proprietors and
the public are left at liberty to make their
bargains; and it may safely be asserted, despite
many complaints against the vehicles
themselves, that the public are not the worse off
for this liberty. No law could fix an omnibus
fare so low as threepence from the Marble Arch
to the City, or from Haverstock-hill to
Westminster Abbey; yet that is what we now
practically obtain.

The Society of Arts took up this subject a
few months ago, with a view to an interchange
of opinions concerning it. Mr. Henry Cole
expressed a belief that it is a mistake to legislate
on a sixpence per mile basis. Numbers of
needy men set up single cabs, purchasing or
hiring old worn-out vehicles; as a consequence
of which the cabs of London are about the
shabbiest in Europe. Let every cab-owner, it
has been urged, decide fares for himself; and
then those who plan the best will gradually
obtain the largest amount of public support.
Birmingham, Liverpool, and Edinburgh are
admitted to possess better cabs than the metropolis.
At Paris, there was an alteration made
last year, confirming, it is true, the central
government control over all the vehicles, and
laying down the tariff of fares; but opening a
door for improvements which do not appear to
have reached London. There are three kinds
of French cabs or voitures, varying in charge
according to their excellence of appointments—
from one to two francs per course, or from one
and a quarter to two and a half francs per hour;
one kind, the "Victoria," an open four-wheeler,
is said to be much in favour with ladies. At one
time there was a hope entertained that the
London cab system would be improved by the
use of indexes or tell-tales, calculated to show
correctly the distance run, and it may yet be
that something of the kind will come into use;
but cab-drivers have hitherto been too
discontented a body of men to give fair play to any
such check upon their charges. It is pretty
well recognised that capitalists do not care
to embark in the cab line; it does not pay
sufficiently well to cover all risks. The owners
complain that they have not been participants
in the benefit which the omnibus proprietors
realised by a change in the duty last year,
bringing down the yearly duty on a 'bus from
sixty-six pounds to about sixteen. The 'bus,
requiring about ten horses to work it, now pays
little more duty than the cab, which never
requires more than two horses a day. Mr.
Frederick Hill, in the discussion above adverted
to, expressed an opinion that the low fare and
the high duty, acting together, reduce the cab-
driver to this dilemma—if he does not cheat
his passengers, he can hardly live by his trade.
There is one very curious fact about cab-
hire, the truth of which seems to be admitted on
all sides; that if, on the one hand, the cabman is
more likely to take advantage of an unprotected
female than of a man, so, on the other hand, if
a woman does insist upon her rights in the
matter, she enforces them in a more rigorous
manner than men. Men seldom proffer
sixpence to the cabman, although entitled to do so
if the distance be under a mile; whereas a
sixpenny ride is rather in favour among thrifty ladies.
Punch once inserted a letter from an imaginary
cabman, adverting to the difficulty which the
fraternity experience in avoiding knocking down
women at the crossings of streets, and otherwise
hinting that the feminine half of the creation
are sometimes embarrassing personages.
The hypothetical writer claims admission for a
few words "from a pore Cabby wich you Poke
your fun hat, but Live and Let life i say and
hear Both side. i ham summond for nockin
downd a woman and call a Brute, sir, how can
We help when they will no More mind crossing
the road then if It was a Private garding, first
take Hold of their Clows, then look at the
Mud and Makes a face at it, then looks to See
wether She shows enuff of her hancles and Then
rush dead a Head like charging a Bull, never
wunst looking rite and Letf, Sir who can pull
up at a minnit notice and the Swell hollaring
and bawling to look a Life, if women will not
Look, she must be Run over. If They have a