friendly, but not respectful, push from behind:
after administering which he promptly shuts
the door to prevent him from tumbling out
again, and the omnibus dashes on. To the
unfortunate who has been thus unceremoniously
abandoned to his fate, the aspect of affairs is
not encouraging. His first instinct is to find
something to seize, with a view to the preservation
of his equilibrium; but this is unhappily one
of those omnibuses which has not even got the
poor accommodation of a rail running along the
inside of the roof for struggling wretches to
grasp at. Desperate, he clutches at anything—
an old lady's bonnet—the features of a sleeping
infant. Like a drowning man, he would
grasp at one of the straws which are entwined
about his feet, if it were suspended from the top
of the vehicle. Staggering and clutching, he
looks around. To all appearance the omnibus is
full. It looks full. The old inhabitants take no
notice of him. They talk to each other. They
look out of window. The new comer is reduced
to counting heads to ascertain on which side he
may be permitted to burrow at the coveted
plush. Both sides look equally crammed, but
he counts and learns his fate. There are six
little people on one side, and five giants, male
and female, on the other. His lot is cast among
these last. With that instinctive knowledge of
physiognomy which belongs to the wretched, he
detects the weakest looking among the five, and
trampling onwards, with the wet skirts (for it
is a rainy day) of the female omnibus-riders
clinging to his legs, he at last reaches the
spot, and, turning himself about, manages to
wedge himself between the individual towards
whom his instincts have led him, and this person's
next neighbour: a lady of a less accommodating
mood, who gathers up her draperies with a
scowl, as if she grudged our poor wretch this
inestimable privilege of a ride in an omnibus,
and thought it a luxury to which the creature
had no right. The omnibus has not been in
motion two minutes, by the way, when this lady
discovers that she has been conveyed past her
destination, and a scene of much confusion ensues.

It must be acknowledged that, to a man of at
all an irritable fibre, the aggravations which
attach to omnibus-travelling are sufficiently
numerous; and it must further be admitted,
that the ladies who patronise this mode of
locomotion are answerable for a great many of
them. The lady who rides in omnibuses has
many very trying ways. She gets into an
omnibus at Mile-end-gate, and in five minutes
after the time when that cheerful spot has been
left behind, she begins hooking and poking at
everybody within reach with her umbrella, in
order that the information may at once be
conveyed to the conductor that she wishes to be
put down at the Marble Arch. Whenever the
conveyance stops in its progress westward
through the City, she takes the opportunity of
reminding the official on the step about that
dreadful gateway, besides stopping the vehicle
two or three times, when panic-stricken by a
conviction that she has been carried past the
structure in question without knowing it.

And then, when at length she does arrive at
her destination, she is never ready with the
money for her fare. The progress of the omnibus
is delayed while she stands on the step or in the
roadway searching for her purse, which, when
at last found, seems to contain nothing but
half-crowns, certain to take a long time in
the changing, even if there was no dispute
about the fare, which in these cases there
invariably is. Sometimes these amiable creatures,
when by their own mistake they have got into a
wrong omnibus, and have ridden several miles
in ignorance of that fact, will decline to pay at
all, arguing that they have been sufficiently
injured in having been brought all that way out
of their road, without having to pay for it as
well.

But it is less with the aggravations for which
our fellow-travellers are responsible, than with
the miseries which are solely referable to those
who provide the inhabitants of London with
omnibus accommodation, that we are now
concerned. Troublesome and selfish individuals
will ride in omnibuses, and in other conveyances
also, to the end of time; what omnibus proprietors
have to do, is to take such measures as
shall render the said troublesome and selfish
persons as little noxious as may be.

What we propose to strike for, first of all, is
more space. We demand that that lane of legs,
up and down which we have to travel in getting
in or out of an omnibus, shall be a wider lane.
This is indispensable. The vicious struggle and
leg-conflict which goes on in that arena between
the two rows of seats on each side of a modern
omnibus, is no longer to be borne, and the time
is at hand when mankind will hardly believe that
any such savage state of things was tolerated
by people calling themselves civilised. If
omnibus proprietors choose to give additional
length at the same time to their vehicles, and so
to accommodate a greater number of passengers,
there is nothing to prevent them from doing it.
It would, no doubt, necessitate the employment
of additional horse-power; but if by the use of
a third horse more seats can be provided for the
use of the public, the owners of these
"metropolitan stage-carriages," as they are formally
called, would be no losers by the change.

Another thing pre-eminently needed, if the
insides of our omnibuses are to be rendered
tolerably comfortable, is a subdivision of the
seats into compartments such as we find in the
stalls of a theatre. By this arrangement, every
individual would be secured against encroachment,
a vast deal of squeezing and crushing
would be avoided, and the traveller would be
able, on entering the carriage, to see at a glance
where there is a vacant space, and to make for
it. Each of these stalls, except those nearest
to the door, should be provided with some means
of communication with the guard, so that the
inhabitant may not be reduced to the undignified
necessity of hooking at an unattainable conductor
with an umbrella not long enough to reach
him.

One more specification. We require some
notification to be put up, in a conspicuous place