relative to the reformation of those
detestable vehicles; and which even invites
every ingenious man in the country to
forward the reform, by sending in models of
a new kind of omnibus. What has become
of all the promises, and all the models?
Here we are still with the same old omnibuses,
and the same old grievances to
complain of. There is no more room for me
on my seat, now, than there was before the
great Company was heard of. I am squeezed
on getting in, and crushed on sitting down,
just as I used to be,—squeezed, sir, and
crushed, sir, and by an infernal Monopoly,
sir, that promised me a new omnibus to
ride in. You are a literary man. Why
don't you sit down, and write a letter about
it to the Times?"

No, my friend, I will not write to the
editor of the Times, to ask him to do for
you, what you ought to do, and can do, for
yourself. You live in a large suburb of
London, and you are one of a large class of
business-men, who return a regular daily
revenue to the omnibus Company. You and
your fellows, in the morning and the evening,
and your wives, sisters, and daughters, when
they go out shopping, in the course of the
day, are the principal customers who keep
certain lines of omnibuses running. Call a
meeting in the City, and propose that the
whole class of the business-men shall give up
using omnibuses for the next six weeks, and
direct their female relatives to do the same.
Make up your minds, and make up their
minds, to walk for that time only. Or, if
this cannot be done, spend a little extra
money—for not more than six weeks, remember
—in cab-hire. Only sacrifice yourselves
individually, for this short time, and
in this easy manner; and you will promote
the general interest of your class, by forcing
the London Omnibus Company to do it
justice. How long do you think that monopoly
would hold out against the sudden
withdrawal of tens of thousands of omnibus
passengers, representing tens of thousands of
fourpences, and sixpences, and not to be
reduced to submission by hunger, as the
poor men are reduced when they combine
against the rich master. Strike, Smoulder!
Strike for six weeks, and ride in comfort
for the rest of your days.

Smoulder stares at me,—shakes his head,
—says irritably: " You turn everything into
a joke. Who's to do all that, I should like
to know? "—prefers passive grumbling, to
which he is accustomed, to active resistance,
of which he has no idea;—hails the omnibus,
not being able to look an inch beyond his
own convenience, the next morning as usual,
—aimlessly grumbles over the discomfort of
it, all the way to the Bank, with his friend
Snorter; who aimlessly grumbles also, to
the same tune, in a lower key;—meets
Gruffer and Grumper on 'Change, and
grumbles to them; goes home (in the omnibus
again) and grumbles to his wife and
children;—finally, writes a letter to the
Times, and actually thinks, when he sees it
in print, that he has done a public duty.

Once more, there are the theatres. There
is hardly a person in this country, possessing
an ordinary sense of comfort, who does not
dread going, even to the most attractive
performances, on account of the miserably
defective accommodation which the managers
offer to the public in return for their money.
If we sit in the dress-circle, have we room
for our legs? Can we move without jostling
our neighbours on both sides? Can we even
see comfortably unless we are in the front
row? If we go down-stairs into the stalls,
are we not jammed together on high seats,
with no foot-stools and no carpet, on the
principle of getting as many of us into the
place as possible—that place never having
been originally intended for stalls at all ? I
know two theatres in London—and two only
—in which it is possible to sit in the stalls
with moderate comfort, and to see below the
knees of the actors. As for the pit—with its
rows of narrow wooden planks, half of them
without backs, and all of them twice as close
together as they ought to be—what words
can describe the wretchedness of it? Where,
in the rest of the habitable world, out of
doors or in, is the cruel discomfort of the so-
called sitting accommodation of a British pit
to be equalled? It is really inconceivable
that the public should now have submitted,
for years and years, to be packed together, for
the sake of putting certain additional pounds
per night into the manager's pockets, like pigs
on board an Irish steam-boat. And yet, they
have submitted, when the remedy lay all the
time, in their own hands. No miserable
sinner in this country more thoroughly enjoys
good acting than I do. And yet, if I thought
the inhabitants of my parish would follow
my example, and would try to rouse other
parishes to the same sensible course of action,
I would, from this moment, cheerfully engage
to abstain from entering a theatre for a whole
year's time, if need be, for the sake of
ultimately starving the managers into giving us
decent accommodation for our money. How
comfortably we might sit and see a play, if
we could only combine to send round a
circular letter of this sort to the proprietors
of the London theatres!

SIR,—I am desired to inform you, on the part of
the theatrically-disposed inhabitants of this parish, that
our bones have ached in your pit, our necks stiffened
in your stalls, and our legs caught the cramp in your
boxes, long enough. Your audience, sir, in this
district, has struck for better seats, to a man, to a woman,
to a child. Put what you like in your bill, not one of
us will enter your theatre till our good money has
wrung out of you the common justice, in return, of a
comfortable seat.

What palaces of luxury our theatres would
become in a few months, if the managers