Holborn, and crossing and recrossing me five
hundred and sixty-six times. This is not even
much more than half enough to satisfy that
active and populous suburb; for another deputation
of thirty-nine Paddington omnibuses
favours me with three hundred and ninety crossings
every day by the way of the Strand; and
another deputation of eight, with eighty
crossings, by the way of the New-road and
Finsbury.

Next comes merry Islington, with its twenty
omnibuses, making two hundred and forty crossings
a day. Then follows that invisible forest, St.
John's Wood (as if its neighbour, Paddington,
had not done enough!) with twenty-three of the
same vehicles, making two hundred and thirty
crossings. They call themselves City Atlases,
although I bear their weight, and they have
probably some Irish idea that the account is
balanced because they carry their passengers.

Hammersmith, with its twenty-six omnibuses,
pays me two hundred and eight of these
unsolicited visits every day, and its opposite
suburb, Bayswater, is not far behind it. Fourteen
omnibuses from this latter place cross me
one hundred and forty times by the way of
Holborn; and seven more, by the way of the
Strand, are able to swell the list with another
fifty-six crossings.

Brompton—the gay and salubrious Brompton
—is represented by eighteen omnibuses, which
perform their one hundred and eighty crossings
a day; and the more remote Putney, with its
twenty-one omnibuses, is only able to reach one
hundred and sixty-eight crossings.

Distance, in this case, lends a little improvement
to the view, and a little more in the case
of Acton and Ealing. These last-named places,
with their five omnibuses, cross me twenty
times a day, and close the account of my special
railway traffic with a daily total of two thousand
two hundred and seventy-eight single journeys.

The next thing that worries me in connexion
with omnibuses, is the through traffic.

Kingsland and Newington must start forty-nine
of these vehicles, which ride daily over my
back six hundred and eighty-six times; Peckham
and Camberwell are represented by twenty-five
conveyances, which appear two hundred and
fifty times; Brixton keeps close to these with
twenty-four omnibuses, which make two hundred
and forty single journeys; and Clapham, Balham
Hill, and Tooting, by joining together, come in
next in the race, showing two hundred and
thirty crossings, with twenty-three vehicles.

The Old Kent-road has very ancient claims
upon my roadway, and they are received by
fourteen omnibuses, which punish me with one
hundred and ninety-six daily visits. Greenwich
I cannot object to on the score of insufficient
acquaintance, and I amiably tolerate forty single
journeys a day, performed by five of these
conveyances, notwithstanding the existence of the
railway.

Deptford and Rotherhithe are represented by
two omnibuses, that make sixteen single journeys
a day; and Wandsworth, which I have no sympathy
with, is satisfied with exactly the same
traffic facilities.

The last place that imposes upon my good
nature in the matter of omnibuses, is Lewisham,
which crosses me, with one vehicle, six times
a day, and winds up the list of crossings with
another total of sixteen hundred and eighty.
This being added to the other total gives a round
sum of nearly four thousand crossings, which is
what I have to bear daily from metropolitan and
suburban omnibuses, in addition to my many
other burdens.

My period of comparative rest from my
miscellaneous trafficmongers is from two o'clock to
five o'clock in the early morning, and my periods
of particular frenzy are from nine o'clock, A.M.,
to seven o'clock, P.M. At ten o'clock in the
morning, I can count, in one hour, nearly thirteen
thousand five hundred foot and carriage
passengers passing across me, besides nearly
eighteen hundred vehicles; and during the hour
ending at five o'clock in the afternoon, I am
compelled to bear twelve thousand passengers,
mixed, as before, and seventeen hundred
miscellaneous vehicles. This is being put upon
with a vengeance!

I often amuse myself by watching my tormentors,
guessing where they have come from,
and where they are going to; admiring some of
the pedestrians, and some of the cargoes in the
waggons, and taking as little notice as possible
of others, for obvious reasons. I have a particular
aversion to "knackers'" carts (although
I see plenty of them), because the legs of the
dead horse hang out at one end and his head at
the other, like the legs and head of a Patagonian
gentleman who has got into a little boy's bed.
I have no love for those waggons that carry
skins from the different slaughter-houses to the
Bermondsey scraping and drying-grounds, especially
in the middle of a very hot summer's day—
the cargo floats about too much in its open carriage
to please me; but perhaps I am over-fastidious.
It is far more agreeable to look
upon a fresh country waggon laden with hay,
and bearing on its summit a brown-faced boy,
who is lying at full length on his stomach,
chewing a straw.

There are waggons full of round cannon-ball
Dutch cheeses, purple as plums; waggons
loaded with brown treacly-oozing sugar-casks,
faithfully attended by a few wasps, and a good
many flies; heavy brewers' drays filled with
large jolting casks, and driven by drowsy giants
in flannel costume, who sit asleep upon the
shafts. There are strong timber-waggons, piled
with heavy yellow planks, like a river-side
wharf; there are coal waggons laden with black
sacks and driven by black drivers; and there are
flour waggons laden with white sacks, and driven
by white drivers. There are waggons full of
carboys of vitriol, casting a pungent odour about
them as they go; waggons full of casks of oil,
smelling like Vauxhall when the lamps have burnt
out; waggons, like moving mountains, crawling
under the heavy weight and towering height, of
half a hundred full hop-sacks.