Punch: Punch (39.1860)

October 6, I860.]

139

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

expect will happen as soon as we have finished the Great Work we are
engaged upon), we trust this good old custom will be duly borne in
mind, and that a suit of the most fashionable clothing will be added to
the title with which we are rewarded, and by which a grateful nation
will indicate its thanks.

OMNIBUS REFORM.

Although for the present ousted from our Parliament, Reform is
very clearly the order of the day. Everyone seems bent upon reform-
ing everybody, and from tailors’ bills to juvenile delinquents there is
nobody and nothing that escapes without attack. The very oldest
nuisances are daringly assailed, nor is a little finger lifted by the public
to protect them. Smithfield has been swept out, and so has the
Palace Court, and there are men who hope to live to see the Income-
Tax reformed, and an end of Temple Bar, the toll-gates and the tax-
gatherers. Where the mania will end it is impossible to say, but ’bus-
cads have been threatened and cabmen may come next, and when these
are both reformed what new wonders may be looked for ?

To show we are not wrong in our announcement of this threat, and
to apprise the British Public that the Wild Busmen of London are not
far off extinction, we beg to call attention to a stringent code of rules
which the General Omnibus Company have recently been issuing, and
which if generally obeyed, will quite exterminate the savages who have
far too long been suffered to infest the public streets. These new
rules are intended for a new set of conductors whom the Company have
started on their Bank-to-Clapton route, where in future, we are told,
“intelligent lads of sixteen or eighteen, having a good character, and
dressed in a neat uniform,” will officiate in place of those beery shoot-
ing-coated and slouch-hatted individuals by whom the rider in an
omnibus has usually been served. The plan, it seems, is copied from
that which is adopted by the Telegraphic Companies; from whose
ranks of nimble Mercuries, as from time to time they grow too old for
that service, the footboards of the Omnibuses will in part be filled.
This we cannot but regard as a promising arrangement; for a lad who
has been trained to run about with telegrams will not be likely to like
crawling along at a snail’s pace as ’bus-cads are in general prone to let
their drivers do.

Something more, however, than mere bodily activity is required for
the service. Aspirants must to some extent have cultivated minds,
nnd to render themselves eligible must have undergone such schooling
as will enable them to “perform any ordinary sums of addition, sub-
traction, and multiplication of money.” This, we can’t help thinking,
is a highly useful rule : for whenever hitherto we have been cheated in
our change, and have received but fivepence halfpenny as the difference
between the shilling which we tendered and the fare of fourpence
which we had to pay, we have often in our charity attributed the fraud
to an ignorance of mathematics on the part of the conductor, whose
defective education we have inwardly deplored.

Among other rules laid down for his guidance and protection, we
find that—

“ A conductor must not enter a public-house during his hours of duty, under-
lain of immediate dismissal and forfeiture of any wages that may be due to him.”

This, although a highly salutary law, we fancy must admit of some
slight mitigation. Unless conductors are to eat their dinners upon
doorsteps, it is obvious the rule must daily be relaxed. We do not
think it would enhance the beauty of our ’buses to see conductors on
their footboards with a pork pie in their hands, or a hunch of bread
and cheese, or a slice of a polony, and taking surreptitious swigs from
a flat bottle. But as even a conductor to an omnibus must eat, to
some such steps as these will our ’bus-cads be reduced, if entrance to
-a public-house for dinner be denied them. If, when serving as most
do at a distance from their homes, they are not to be allowed to enter
a refreshment place, they will have to be continually taking bits and
scraps, and doubtless will be forced to answer questions with their
mouths full, and perhaps to wet their whistle when they want to
blow it.

But the mandates we have quoted are comparatively mild compared
I with others which are issued, and which we here subjoin. During
each journey, each conductor is told on pain of death, or at any rate
dismissal, that—

“ He must direct the driver where to go, and where to stop during the journey.
He must see that the omnibus works to its appointed time, and report to the road
inspector the cause of any irregularity in that respect. While on the journey he
must stand on his footboard, with his- back to the omnibus ; but in letting passen-
j .gers in and out, he must descend and assist them. He must if possible set passengers
down at the kerb stone on either side of the road desired. If more passengers desire
to ride than he has room for, he who first hails the omnibus must have the prece-
dence. Before giving the signal for starting, he must see that passengers are
seated, or that they have firm hold of the upright bar in the interior. He must not
slam the door, strike the panel, or kick the footboard, as a signal to the driver, but
j 'must call or blew a whistle. He must prevent passengers getting in or out, on or
| eff, the omnibus while in motion. He must be civil and obliging to passengers in
all things. He must not leave the omnibus while on his journey, except to assist a
passenger to or from the pavement. He must not ride inside the omnibus. He
must not smoke nor stop to drink during the journey. Persons in dirty dress or I

otherwise fairly objectionable, or in a state of intoxication, must not be admitted
into the omnibus. No person must ride on the step of the omnibus. Dogs must
not bo admitted into the omnibus, except small dogs carried in the hand, and then
only with the consent of all passengers. Packages of meat, or fish, or bulky or
offensive packages of any kind, must not be a'lowed inside the omnibus.”

If conductors observe duly this their Duty to their Neighbour, we
shall hear no more of stoppages to “wash the osses’ mouths out;” of
nervous persons being set down in the middle of the street; or of
unprotected females being carried off to Bayswater upon the plea that
it’s within a “heasywalk” of Brixton. The word ’bus-cad will die
out, and the nicer term of ’bus-lad be allowed to take its place. Lads
who know how to conduct themselves, may wondrously reform the
conducting of the omnibuses. There will no more be slams of doors, or
shovelling in of feeble passengers, or starting off so suddenly that they
are thrown in others’ laps, or have to lay hold of the nearest noses to
support themselves. Band-boxes and lap-dogs, and other feminine
encumbrances, will no longer be allowed to annoy the public’s knees, j
and the pubhe’s toes and corns will be most carefully respected. We
even live in hopes that the days of the admission of Crinoline are
numbered. So Eutopian, in fact, is the state of things in prospect,
that we thoroughly expect it will be possible ere long to get into an
omnibus without having to run for it, and without finding a baby or a 1
wet umbrella in it.

JANUARIES AND GAVAZZL

To Sir George Bowies, M.P.

My Dear Bowyer,

You will have seen that Father Gavazzi has been preaching
in the Cathedral at Naples. Fancy that! The sarcrosanct edifice did
not fall down upon him. Would you have thought it ? Nay, Gavazzi
prophesied in the pulpit, and, what is more, his prediction was fulfilled.
He said that San Gennaro’s blood would liquefy on the appointed day,
notwithstanding the presence of Garibaldi. The blood did liquefy so
punctually as nine o’clock in the morning, like butter on a hot roll at
breakfast, a natural phenomenon which no doubt occurred in many
instances about the same hour with the miracle. It is clear, therefore,
that Gennaro is no more a humbug than Gavazzi. If the former is a
true saint, the latter is also a veritable prophet; but what a testimony
the saint and the prophet combine in bearing to the cause of Garibaldi
and Victor Emmanuel ! How can the King and the Dictator be
supposed to have been excommunicated ? Of course they have not
been. Infallibility could not err. His Holiness named no names in
the bull consigning to perdition some person or persons unknown,
which he caused to be stuck on the walls. The spiritual pretensions
of the Holy Father are thus triumphantly saved; but don’t you think
now that he appears to be placed in a dilemma wherein he had better
draw in his temporal horns ? Antonelli may say what he likes; but
you will doubtless agree with your condiscipie in apple sauce.

Feast of Michaelmas Goose, 1860.

CENTS AND NONSENSE.

The Elections in America are principally carried on by a process
called “ stumping.” Paid orators scour the country, and address the
multitude, who dearly love a speech, from the stump of a tree. Hence
the term, “stump orator.” However, there is also another form of
stumping it. All the officials in the pay of the Government have been
called upon by the Democratic clubs to pay a subscription, the minimum
of which is to be not less than £10, towards the expenses of the election
of their Candidate. As their retention of office depends upon the
return of the Democrat candidate, the subscriptions must be paid, or
else the million and a half of employes (they_ are either more or else)
must politely walk out to allow another million and a half quietly to
walk in. The application is tantamount to a demand, “ Your money
or your seat.” This method of coming down with the stumpy is by
no means so popular as the first. Your stump orator attracts men far
and near to listen to him; but your stump tax-gatherer, who calls upon
the poor clerk to stump up, has the peculiar effect of making all those i
he addresses himself to run in the opposite direction.

The Cup of Misery.

We read in the Italian correspondence the following distressing fact:—

“ There has been an insurrection in Todi.”

We suppose such an insurrection was stirred up with a spoon P We
should recommend that an Irishman or a Scotchman be sent over to
quell this insurrection, for they’re the boys for putting down Todi
(Toddy). ____

Pretty, if not True.—A poetical Young Lady, who has just come
out, calls “ Dreams the best oculists in the world, for do they not give
eyes even to the blind?”