chatting to each other without the smallest
appearance of astonishment. I cannot
positively state that there was a captain depicted as
in command of this atmospheric vessel, though
my belief leans that way; but I perfectly well
remember a "man at the wheel," grasping a
tiller like a cheese-cutter, and directing the
course with the greatest ease and freedom.
This would have been an eligible mode of
conveyance had the scheme ever been carried out;
but the inventor only got as far as the print,
and there apparently exhausted himself, as I
never heard anything further of it. And this,
by the way, reminds me that an occasional trip
in Mr. Coxwell's balloon would be a novel and
an exciting method of getting over the ground,
only there being no "man at the wheel," there
is a consequent absence of definite knowledge as
to where you are going, and if I, bent on travelling
from Jetsam-gardens to Canonbury-square,
were to see Mr. Coxwell looking vaguely out,
and were to hear him remarking, "Isn't that
Beachy Head?" I should feel uncomfortable.

So I am compelled to fall back on a cheap,
easy, and, to a certain extent, expeditious
mode of locomotion, and to travel by the omnibus.
I am aware that professed cynics will
sneer at my use of the word expeditious. There
are, I believe, journeys performed in the middle
of the day, when the snail gallops gaily past the
outward-bound suburban omnibus, and when
the tortoise—having an appointment to keep at
the Ship and Turtle—prefers to walk, in order
that he may be in time; but the middle of the
day is consecrated to old ladies going "into
the City" on business, while my experience
is confined to the early morning and the late
evening, when we run "express," and when, I
will venture to wager, we go as fast, the crowded
state of the streets considered, as ever did the
York Highflyer or the Brighton Age. My
associations with omnibuses are from my youth
upward. As a child, I lived in a very large
thoroughfare, and I used to stand for hours at
the window watching the red Hammersmith
omnibuses, luminous with the name of "GEORGE
CLOUD," and the white Putney and Richmond
omnibuses, and the green Favorites, boldly
declaring the ownership of "ELIZABETH and JOHN
WILSON"—grand 'buses those, with drivers and
conductors in green liveries, always renewed
(with an accompaniment of nosegay for buttonhole,
and favours for whip, and rosettes for
horses' ears) on the occasion of the Queen's
birthday. I was originally taken to school in a
hackney-coach—I perfectly well recollect kneeling
at the bottom in the straw as we (I and a
broken-hearted aunt) ascended Highgate-hill,
and imploring tearfully to be taken back home,
even in the lowest menial capacity—but I came
back in an omnibus, in a high state of
effervescence, and with a large stock of worldly
experience. I first saw her who, as the bagmen's
toast says, doubles the pleasures and halves the
sorrows of my life, as I stepped off an omnibus;
I first went down to my office on an omnibus;
and I still patronise that same conveyance,
where I may incidentally mention I am a
"regular," that I always have the seat next the
coachman on the off-side, and that my opinion
on the news from America is always anxiously
expected by my fellow-passengers. Long since,
however, have the omnibuses of my childhood
been "run off the road." Mr. George Cloud and
his compeers have retired, and the whole
metropolitan service, with very few exceptions, is
worked by the London General Omnibus
Company. Concerning which—its rise, origin, and
progress, and the manner in which it is carried
on, I have, under proper official authority, made
full inquiry, and now intend to report.

If the present Emperor of the French had
succeeded in his memorable expedition with the tame
eagle to Boulogne, it is probable that we in
England might still be going on with the old separate
proprietary system of omnibuses; but, as the
tame eagle expedition (majestic in itself) was a
failure, its smaller component parts had to escape
as they best could. Among these smaller
component parts was one Orsi, captain of the steamer
conveying the intruding emperor; and Orsi,
flying from justice, flew after the manner of his
kind to England, and there established himself.
Years after, in 1855, this M. Orsi bethought
himself of a scheme for simultaneously
improving his own fortunes and bettering the
condition of the London omnibus traffic, by
assimilating its management to that which for a long
time had worked admirably in Paris. He
accordingly associated with himself a crafty long-
headed man of business, one M. Foucard, and
they together drew up such a specious
prospectus, that when they submitted it to four of
the principal London omnibus proprietors,
Messrs. Macnamara, Wilson, Willing, and Hartley
these gentlemen, all thoroughly versed in
their business, so far saw their way, that they
at once consented to enter into the proposal,
and became the agents for Messieurs Orsi and
Foucard. The division of labour then
commenced; the Frenchmen started for Paris, there
to establish their company (for our English laws
on mercantile liability and the dangers of
shareholding were, a few years ago, much foggier, and
thicker, and less intelligible, and more
dangerous, than they are now); and so well did they
succeed, that, in a very short time, they had
raised and perfected as a "Société en
Commandite," the "Compagnie Generate des Omnibus
de Londres," with a capital of £700,000, in
shares of 100 francs (or £4) each; three-fourths
of the capital—such was our neighbours' belief
in our business talents and luck in matters
touching upon horseflesh—being subscribed in
France. Meantime, the English section were
not idle; as agents for the two Frenchmen, they
bought up the rolling stock, horses, harness,
stabling, and good will, of nearly all the then
existent omnibus proprietors; they became
purchasers of six hundred omnibuses and six
thousand horses, of an enormous staff of coachmen,
conductors, time-keepers, horse-keepers, washers,
and other workmen, and, what was very
important, they possessed themselves of the