feature of the yard which cannot be too highly commended, and which I am sure if it were known the general public would be happy to support. The men are satisfied, I think. One of them I had known in better days seemed glad to have secured a berth as a driver. One informed me that he had £100, which he had told his Missus to draw out of the savings bank and place in the custody of the Royal British; but his Missus was obstinate, and her obstinacy saved the cash. Some of the men are teetotallers, and those who wish to attend church or chapel on the Sunday can do so. It is an advantage in a great company that it cannot resort to the little meanness and persecution of which a single proprietor may be guilty. The latter may underpay his servants, keep them at work all day, or take every advantage of them in every possible way. But if a great company does this, the public cries shame. But we must be off. Once more we find ourselves in the road; a ’bus comes up—we climb the roof—we have seen baronets and M.P.’s get inside; an opposition ’bus is behind; “All right!” cries the conductor. Merrily we rush on, exclaiming mentally—
“Ore favete omnes et tempora cingite ramis.”
As a contrast, let me quote the following from Miss Meteyard’s essay on the history and present condition of the Metropolitan omnibus drivers and conductors, published in Cassell’s “Working Man’s Friend and Family Instructor,” in 1850. Our readers will see that in the last few years a great and desirable change has been made. Miss Meteyard says:—“As we have said, 11,000 individuals are connected with the omnibus labour of the metropolis. Of these, 6,000 are drivers and conductors, who work on an average rather more than sixteen hours a day; namely, from before eight o’clock in the morning till after twelve o’clock at night. The labour connected with railway omnibuses is still severer than this, being twenty hours each third day, and fourteen on alternate ones. Nor does the seventh day bring rest, as in most laborious occupations; work goes on in precisely the same manner; and, as on some lines of road, the traffic is greater on Sundays than on other days, the work is so far heavier. During the number of hours the men are employed they have no rest. The driver never leaves his box, except during a few occasional minutes whilst his horses are changed; and he has, therefore, to take his
meals during these periods, and usually upon the coach-box, as, where the men have wives and families, some member of them may be often seen handing up the tea or dinner in a can or basket. As the married portion of these men universally say, they ‘never see their children except as they may look at them in bed;’ and as for home, in its commonly-received sense, or of any of the moral duties connected with it, the one is unknown, and the other is impossible. The case of the conductors is precisely the same, neither having a day’s rest for months together, for if they take one they have to pay a substitute; and in many cases the proprietors object to a day’s relaxation, and will not hire men who need or may ask for it, such being against the laws of their particular association. For a loss of time they are fined 2s. 6d., and for a second or third offence, suspended from a week’s employment, or else dismissed. Against stringent rules of this kind we should take no objection, were the hours of labour in any degree of reasonable length; in that case, stringency would be doubly effective, both as regarded the interest of the proprietary and public convenience.”
“Looking at this preposterous amount of daily
labour, and the evils which, directly and indirectly, must flow therefrom, in relation to pauperism, crime, and a low average of life, we should expect to find omnibus labour highly remunerated. Yet such is not the case. On some roads the drivers receive no more than from twelve to fifteen shillings for the work of seven days; and out of this they are compelled by their employers to pay six shillings weekly as beer-money to horse-keepers and stable-keepers. Of course, with wages at so low a par, and so much reduced by outgoings, men would scarcely be found willing to undertake this week’s work of a hundred and twelve hours, unless each driver were allowed, as is the case, the privilege of an outside passenger, on the box beside him, each distance he drives, whether the fare be sixpence or threepence. Each driver drives ten or twelve distances per day, each distance to and fro being about six miles; and thus, in fine weather, when the generality of male passengers prefer the outside, and the coach-box is sure of an occupant, the driver’s perquisites may mount up to a fair weekly sum. But in wet and bad weather the case is very different, and these men drive the whole
day through without a single passenger. This may possibly account for the variable temper of omnibus-drivers, who, reversing the ordinary process of things, are surly in fine, and courteous in wet weather, and, caring nothing for patronage whilst the sun shines, grow civil in times of frost and rain, and proffer, with parental solicitude, cape, wrapper, and apron.
“Though acting in a more responsible capacity, the conductors, unlike the drivers, are only daily servants, and liable, and often subject to, dismissal, at a moment’s notice. Men once thus dismissed are rarely employed as conductors again, it being a rule with these combined proprietors never to employ a man in this capacity who has acted as conductor in any previous situation.”
THE NEW CATTLE MARKET.
The London public are not of the opinion of Shelley, that flesh of bullocks and sheep, when properly cooked, is the true cause of original sin, and that to regain the innocence of the Garden of Eden we have but to have recourse solely to a vegetarian diet. This doctrine has never been a popular one, and from the earliest time the contrary has found favour in the eyes of men. With what gusto does Homer describe the banquets before the walls of Troy, when heroes were the guests, and where divine Achilles was the head cook! The custom of eating baked and boiled is one of the few good things we have to thank antiquity for. Our jolly Scandinavian forefathers considered eating horse rump steak a sign of orthodox paganism; and at this very moment, if the Times be a correct index of the national sentiment, the great question that agitates the mind of the middle class public, that public in which, according to general opinion, all