and it is a wonder
anyone could be found to go in them. When the motor-omnibuses are full
they carry a great many people. Those of the latest pattern carry
fifty-four passengers inside and out. There is now a regulation to make
omnibuses stop only at certain fixed places which are shown by
sign-boards with the numbers of the 'buses on them. This saves the
constant stopping and starting again, which is trying for the driver,
and wastes much time. People are often very inconsiderate about this;
they never think of getting off if the omnibus stops just a little way
before the place they are going to. I have seen a woman--I'm afraid
women are the worst in this respect--wave her umbrella to the conductor
of an omnibus that was going at a good pace, so the omnibus stopped, and
the woman took quite a long time to go across the street to it; and when
she reached it she asked if it were going to the place she wanted, and
it was not, so all the stopping and waiting had been for nothing. The
motor 'buses go very much faster than the old horse 'buses, and as they
carry, also, many more people, altogether, as we have seen, they do more
work in the way of conveyance altogether.

You can go a long way in an omnibus for a few pence, but taxi-cabs are
much more expensive; they are also very comfortable--no stopping and
waiting for other people then. You are carried swiftly and smoothly to
your destination, unless you are held up by the traffic; and you always
know just how much you will have to pay, as the little clock face
beside the driver marks up the extra payment as the cab covers the
ground.

The motor cabs in London are more comfortable than the hansoms were. But
the old hansom was very good for seeing in the streets, as the driver
was behind and not in front of you. The four-wheel horse cabs seem very
slow to us now, but they carried more luggage than the taxi-cabs can.
Some of us think that the old omnibuses and cabs were more interesting
than the modern ones.

I will tell you a story an omnibus horse told me. His name is Billy, and
he lives in the outskirts of London.

'Oh yes,' he says, 'it's a deal better than being a cab-horse, this is.
They think themselves very grand, and turn up their noses at us. Why,
yes, I've known a cab-horse that turned his nose up so high he could
never get it down again into his nose-bag when he wanted to eat his
dinner, and they had to have a special sort of nose-bag made for him.
Fact! And