Cabby: "Thank you, sir, all the same; but I never take it. I'm a follerin' Mr. Bantin's adwice for corpulence, sir. He says, I may take two or three glasses o' good claret, or a glass or two of sherry wine, or red port, or medeiry, any sort o' sperits—"
(Swell, deeply touched, makes the sixpence half-a-crown.)
The placidity which one associates with mid-Victorian life was rudely disturbed in London by the garrotting scare in the 'sixties. Complaints of the inefficiency of the police and attacks on the Commissioner are frequent in those years. Yet street accidents were far fewer, and, on the whole, it cannot be maintained that London has become safer to live in. The mention of the police reminds one that the tall hat was discarded in 1865 for the helmet, a sensible change which was at first met with undeserved ridicule. The possibility of a strike of policemen at the end of 1872 seemed to Punch so incredible that he declined to treat it seriously.
TO GARROTTERS—"CAVE TOMKINS"
Tomkins (loq.): "Let 'em try it on again, that's all."
[12] St. Legers.