There are no street cars run by the trolley, storage or any other electric system; no cable cars, no horse cars; not a track is laid for a surface road in “the city” proper. Many Americans leave London without ever seeing a street car of any kind, and yet in the metropolis one thousand street cars run daily over one hundred and twenty miles of track, but they are not permitted in crowded thoroughfares; they are confined to the outlying districts. I have only seen them in the east end, in the district known as “The Boro’” and near the Victoria Station. The street cars are “double deckers,” and, like the ’buses, they carry more outside than inside passengers, but the number of passengers is limited. When the car has reached its limit it will take up no more passengers. Every passenger has the right to a seat, and, to use a paradoxical phrase, every Englishman stands up for his right to a seat.
OMNIBUSES.
The two thousand omnibuses keep employed eight or nine thousand horses. The number of miles run annually by the omnibuses is five and a half millions, and the number of passengers carried not less than forty-eight millions.
Such a heavy, slow-going, cumbersome vehicle as the London omnibus could not be used on our rough-and-tumble roads. It is poorly ventilated, if you can call it ventilated, for the windows are closed and are immovable. The only means of ventilation is by the door, in the rear, near which everybody tries to get. As fast as the choice seats near the door are vacated, they are occupied by the less fortunate passengers, and the last comer is always obliged to take the worst place, which is nearest the front. But in fine weather a man never gets inside while there is a vacant seat on top, and it is no strange sight to see women occupying outside seats to escape the stifling air inside.
Nor does wet weather deter an Englishman from taking an open air seat. Most Englishmen wear a “mackintosh” in threatening weather and there’s a great deal of such weather in London. To every seat on the top of a ’bus there is attached a woolen-lined leather apron to protect the knees, and with an umbrella, which is always part of an Englishman’s costume, they manage to keep perfectly dry.
The omnibuses are so freely used for advertising purposes, the outside is so nearly covered with attractive and gaudy signs of business houses that it is exceedingly difficult to read or discover the route or destination of the vehicle. You may be looking for Blackwall or Putney, but you will read “Hyams’ thirteen-shilling trousers “or “Day & Martin’s blacking is the best.”
The ’buses do not confine themselves to the middle of the roadway and allow passengers to pick and fight their way through a crowd of vehicles, New York-like; they pull up to the curb to allow passengers to enter or leave without the least possibility of danger or trouble. Conductors will also leave their perch, approach the sidewalk (Anglice, pavement) to consult or advise with a prospective passenger who is in doubt as to which ’bus he should take. Time seems of no importance: they are not in such a rush or whirl of excitement as we are. Whether from the excessive competition or from some other cause I know not: I do know that public servants in England are much more civil and polite than they are in this “free” country.