LONDON LOCOMOTION.
LONDON is not quite so badly organized a city as its inhabitants are apt in November so querulously to assert. The municipal bodies may job, but they do not lay down thousands of miles of
pipes to secure votes, or leave rowdies to reign because police are expensive, or spend fourteen millions of dollars without visible out- turn, like the clique which misgoverns and dominates New York. It is possible with outlay and energy to attain in London a speed of more than four miles an hour, an attempt the Parisian has long since abandoned with the resigned shrug only a Parisian can per- form. It is easy to dine without a mouchard at your elbow, though a Viennese may not believe it, and there are only two perma- nent stinks, though a Madrileno would deem that allowance too few to secure health. A Philadelphian driver would call a London cabman a slave, a continental official would deem its police inert, and there arc negative advantages in the way of freedom to do as you like which the citizens of the Continent may view with envious de- spair. But there are nuisances in London nevertheless, and the first of them are the impediments to cheap and comfortable locomotion. We do not allude to stoppages in the City, though they diminish business hours on the average by about one-tenth, or even the prac- tice of blocking up the best-frequented thoroughfares in order to remedy an escape of gas. You cannot cut open an artery, because it is gorged with blood, and to widen a London street is almost as senous an affair. Neither can you prohibit civilization because the pipes which convey its first requisites are horribly in the way. We refer to those minor nuisances which could be obviated by a little common sense, and are borne only because business men are too busy, and idlers too lazy, for reform. First and foremost among these is the want of a regular system of omnibus conveyance. By dint of attention and study, such as would enable him to acquire a science, the regular Londoner contrives to know where particular omnibuses may be expected under ordinary circumstances to pull up. To a stranger, the arrangements are the per- fection of addled confusion, which he sadly contrasts with the order observed on most railways, and even with the method which may be faintly discerned in the Parisian system of "correspondence." But on a cross route, even a Londoner is at a loss. He may trust to his skill in localities, and by risking his neck at the right moments, walking one-third of the way, and running another third, may succeed in availing himself of such service as irritated conductors will render for the remainder of his road. But of system, properly so called, there is not a trace. The omnibuses do not even keep steadily to their lines, and the yellow van which to-day lands the traveller at the Bank, may next week be going to Camden Town. Of course we do not expect systematic regularity. Utopian dreams of that sort are only for men who prefer Paris to London, a Prefect of the Seine to a gold-chained Lord Mayor. But why should there not be an omni- bus " Bradshaw ?" There are people, we know, to whom that publica- tion seems simple, and careful study might enable folk, with a talent for mathematics, to apply it to the streets. The omnibuses might be induced, on clear proof that the complaisance would pay, to alter their routes only once a week, or even to adopt a system of colours conveying some idea beyond that of the marvellous taste of the coach painters. The names even, by dint of a little arrangement, might be made to indicate the direction in which the vehicle was intended to go, while the railing affords ample space for a visible list of stoppages on the way. A. " Bradshaw,' explaining the peculiarities of each line, the routes of the chief companies, fares, numbers, and colours of the different vehicles, good for one week, and sold for a penny, ought to bring to its publisher something more substantial than the thanks of the public and the blessings of elderly females. The omnibus reached, the traveller seats himself only to find new
miseries begun. Why an omnibus should only open at one end, by a door too small for its purpose, into a passage which seems designed in the interest of bootmakers, no coachbuilder professes to ex- plain. Still less can he tell us why the seats should not be partitioned off, to the despair of pickpockets, or why threepenny or fourpenny checks, available for any time, should not be sold at the offices, and thereby prevent the hunt after change, and quarrel with an impudent cad, which omnibus travellers now accept as they would a toothache or an influenza. Mr. Train's tramways will not suit either our streets or our habits of liking whatever the upper ten thousand find reason to approve ; but surely we might have Mr. Train's omnibus without destroying our roads. Is invention so utterly paralyzed that the Londoner muse travel with pickpockets in a dirty van, with his knees in his neighbour's lap, and his digestion destroyed by a lurch like that of a boat in a head sea ? Or is there any occult reason why omnibuses, like cabs, should not be compelled to charge by the mile, instead of according to their pro- prietors' caprice, or their conductors' capacity in blaspheming ?
Nobody who can afford a cab enters an omnibus ; but the in- creased expense secures a very inadequate return. It is waste of time to abuse what no man ever defends, and we may leave the four- wheeler with a safe conscience to John Leech. From the straw which sticks to your clothes, to the windows which render all inau- dible but themselves, it is a triumph of inconvenience. But for the fact that it will carry four, that the only other cab cannot convey
luggage, and that women have a ludicrous prejudice against Hansoms, the regular cab would have long since disappeared. Even as it is a few improvements would leave the Hansom a monopoly of the field. That vehicle has at least one solid advantage, it can move faster than a man can conveniently walk, and this is sufficient to induce men in a hurry to put up with its discomforts. But nothing is gained by their existence. Suppose, for instance, the preposterous doors flew open at a touch from the driver, or, better still, were replaced by a door falling in one piece back from the splash-board ; and suppose the ridiculous lass shutter which descends on the traveller's nose were abolished in favour of sliding panes of semicircular glass to be closed and retracted at pleasure. One cab, at least, with the latter improvement is driven about the Strand, but there is no sign that it has ever been visible to the body of jobmasters or cabmen. With a door which it was possible to shut without leaving the foot-board, and protection at will against sun and rain, the Hansom would really become the fitting conveyance of a people who love speed. If to these conveniences were added a third in the shape of a wire cage under the driver's seat enough to hold a single portmanteau, London would have a fiacre without a rival on the Continent. A vehicle of a somewhat better description, a brougham, in fact, not jobbed by the day, it is, we suppose, a waste of time to desire; yet such a vehicle might be useful at least in the months when the roads break out into their annual rash. That the owners of carriages should pay for mending the roads might, other expedients failing, perhaps be fair, but to compel them to use their carriages as rollers, is, to say the least, a little tyrannical. Yet this is done over the whole of the western quarter. Early in June a few tons of granite are thrown on the roads, to shatter all springs, and be pulverized by all wheels. If the coachman, careful not for his wheels only, but for his horses' feet, attempt to drive to the side, huge trestles are planted along the finished way to keep him to the work his master is taxed to avoid. There is a street near Russell-square at this moment, which has been heaped with granite for five weeks, and will, we believe, be smooth just as the time arrives for the disease to break out again. Three hours' work of a good roller would make the street passable again, but the trestles are supposed to be cheaper, and the work is left to carriages worth all the money expended on the road. The roads must be repaired, but why not one side at a time ? or, if that be in- convenient, why not finish the work at once, sending the roller after the sharp stones it is intended to roll down ? With accessible Han- soms, an omnibus Bradshaw, and roads intended for carriages and not for rollers, the comfort of locomotion in London would be per. ceptibly increased.
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