conscious that in the depth of
our meditations we might have been rudely staring at the old lady for
half an hour without knowing it, we took to flight too, and were soon
immersed in the deepest obscurity of the adjacent 'Dials.'

CHAPTER VII--HACKNEY-COACH STANDS

We maintain that hackney-coaches, properly so called, belong solely to
the metropolis. We may be told, that there are hackney-coach stands in
Edinburgh; and not to go quite so far for a contradiction to our
position, we may be reminded that Liverpool, Manchester, 'and other large
towns' (as the Parliamentary phrase goes), have _their_ hackney-coach
stands. We readily concede to these places the possession of certain
vehicles, which may look almost as dirty, and even go almost as slowly,
as London hackney-coaches; but that they have the slightest claim to
compete with the metropolis, either in point of stands, drivers, or
cattle, we indignantly deny.

Take a regular, ponderous, rickety, London hackney-coach of the old
school, and let any man have the boldness to assert, if he can, that he
ever beheld any object on the face of the earth which at all resembles
it, unless, indeed, it were another hackney-coach of the same date. We
have recently observed on certain stands, and we say it with deep regret,
rather dapper green chariots, and coaches of polished yellow, with four
wheels of the same colour as the coach, whereas it is perfectly notorious
to every one who has studied the subject, that every wheel ought to be of
a different colour, and a different size. These are innovations, and,
like other miscalled improvements, awful signs of the restlessness of the
public mind, and the little respect paid to our time-honoured
institutions. Why should hackney-coaches be clean? Our ancestors found
them dirty, and left them so. Why should we, with a feverish wish to
'keep moving,' desire to roll along at the rate of six miles an hour,
while they were content to rumble over the stones at four? These are
solemn considerations. Hackney-coaches are part and parcel of the law of
the land; they were settled by the Legislature; plated and numbered by
the wisdom of Parliament.

Then why have they been swamped by cabs and omnibuses? Or why should
people be allowed to ride quickly for eightpence a mile, after Parliament
had come to the solemn decision that they should pay a shilling a mile
for riding slowly? We pause for a reply;--and, having no chance of
gett